Resident Evil: Blood of the Damned
by Mark 'Manix' Odell
Summary: Taking place around about the same time as towards the end of CV, Leon and Rebecca end up on an island presided over by the maniacal Richard Spencer...it has a deep, dark secret; can Claire and Chris help them in time?
1. Default Chapter

For just a few moments, Leon genuinely had no clue where he was. A strange internal voice was telling that if he didn't enjoy those moments now, then he wouldn't be enjoying himself in quite a remarkable length of time. His senses were the parts of his being that kicked in first…now what was it he was sitting on?

   Concrete, it felt like concrete. Wet concrete too, the moisture soaked into his trousers, sticking to the skin of his legs. He couldn't actually see anything though; the darkness hugged close to him. Leon started to panic for a moment; was he blind? 

     Then, his skin started to react to touch too. As he wrinkled his cheeks, Leon felt that there was something digging into them. It was hard, after a fashion…then it dawned on him. His eyes had been taped over. A solid square of thick masking tape, it felt like. His mouth was dry, but in a way this was what he expected because a gag was lazily pushed into his mouth. Obviously whoever had done this had not really been bothering that much with the gag. 

     Maybe he could work the cloth out of his mouth. Then he could breathe properly. Leon pushed his tongue up, and curved his lower lip to force the gag forwards and then tugged his chin up sharply so the gag fell to beneath his chin. He breathed the air in. It was damp air, and a sniff confirmed that it was also dank, the sort of smell you'd find down in a disused cellar. 

     His body was sore and stiff, propped in a sitting up position, hands bound behind his back with a strong cord. However, his back was not pressed against the same solid concrete that his legs were. It was solid – to a point. Soft as well. How could something be soft and solid at the same time? The mass was also warm…

      Then his mind's logic circuits clicked. He was tied to somebody.

      "Who is that?" he croaked, vocal chords coming to life.

      After a while, a soft female voice spoke.

      "Wha…who…is that you Leon?"

     Leon's mind raced to identify the voice. It wasn't Claire, it wasn't Jill…it was…

      "Rebecca?" Leon managed.

      "Why are we tied together?" she asked, groggily.

     Suddenly, his memory returned. All of it. The colour drained from his face as he recalled the series of events that had led to him being bound, gagged and tied up in wherever it was he was tied up in. It was Umbrella, wasn't it? It was them, no doubt about that, the Umbrella Marines were distinct to say the least. He'd recognised the badges sewn to their T-Shirts, the familiar red and white Umbrella logo prominent against the dull green colour of their combat jackets. They'd gone on a mission immediately after Claire had sent him that message and he'd related it to Chris…they'd left pretty much straight away to Australia, leaving a message for Chris, Jill and hopefully Claire to tell them that that was where they had gone.

       His memories collated together; he'd led the group, with Rebecca and those STARS members from out of town. The infiltration into Umbrella's Sydney HQ had been a total cinch; the security hadn't been anything they weren't expecting, they'd breezed through it. However, somebody or something had been ready for them. The sound of the alarm echoed in his ears…it was at that point it had occurred to everyone that something had gone dreadfully, badly wrong. A small army, equipped with enough firepower to start a war was crawling over them like ants within minutes. The other STARS had escaped, mainly because Leon had yelled at them to go ahead. 

   For some reason, Rebecca had elected to stay behind. She'd told him she wasn't going to leave him behind, while he said something along the lines of 'don't be so bloody stupid, you'll be killed, get out while you can'. After running and gunning their way through the higher security levels, making death defying leaps and sliding along either marble floors or metal gantries, they were cornered. 

    It wasn't simply a case of being cornered; surrounded, described it a little better. Assault Rifles, all held by men with itchy trigger fingers, pointed from every angle towards them, each barrel end less than six inches from their faces.

    The slightest movement would kill them. Rebecca and Leon were disarmed, bound and gagged. Presumably they had been knocked unconscious; Leon recalled little of what happened there, but his memory next flowed in when he was hurled to the floor of a red-lit helicopter, head throbbing and being pummelled relentlessly by questions he couldn't possibly answer; Where was Chris Redfield? Who led the STARS? Where were the remaining STARS? What happened to Claire Redfield? Where was Sherry Birkin? What do you know about the G-Virus?

    The questions either meant nothing to him or had answers he simply could not get his mind around. Rebecca had been asked the same questions, she was clueless too. However, one thing was certain now; Leon S. Kennedy and Rebecca Chambers were up to their knees in trouble.

    'You assholes are gonna love it there' somebody had hissed, before savagely clubbing him over the head with the butt of his rifle.

     His memories of where they were restricted to the outdoors, and even then he knew little of the outdoors. It was a blur of dreary, grey rain and framed by darkness, bricks and mortar. Trees too, he remembered, through his stinging skull.

      More blackness…and then this. 

      "Oh geez…" Leon groaned "…I have a bad fucking headache"

      "You too?" she asked, "I thought I was the only one…"

      "Where are we?" Leon said, still artificially blind.

      "How should I know? I've got a great big bit of tape over my eyes"

      Leon groaned once again.

       "And we're tied together, right?"

       "Uh…yep" Rebecca confirmed.

       "We need to get these bindings off" Leon remarked, tugging his hands which were currently wedged into Rebecca's, he realised, "I don't want to hang around in a prison that Umbrella's prepared for us"

        "You're not the only one" she replied "But if I had a knife I'd be out of here by now"

      "I wasn't asking for a knife, I was asking for something sharp"

      "How about using your tongue?" she shot back.

      "Well we couldn't use your wit to do it then, could we?" Leon retorted "Now come on, got anything in your pockets?"

      "Leon, my hands are tied, I can't _check my pockets"_

      "Then I'll do it!" Leon said, shimmying closer to her "Just creating a bit of slack there…"

      His left hand slid into her pocket, and he explored the combat-trouser pocket. No, nothing there…his right hand slipped into her other pocket…and he found something. A ringpull from a can. Oh superb. Then he brushed his hand against the sharp edge where it had broken from the can.

     He grinned.

      "Still collecting ringpulls, huh Rebecca?"

      "Uh…yeah" Rebecca replied in embarrassment "It's just a hobby, okay?"

     And that hobby has just saved our lives, Leon thought, but you can't waste time.

      Leon held it in his fingers, and began to saw from left to right across a length of cord. He kept on sawing, he didn't know how long he was doing it but it was maybe after fifteen minutes of cutting constantly when he felt it ready to tear. He pulled his hands.

    The strands stretched and…severed. He stretched his stiff arms and then rotated his neck to ensure that his neck hadn't totally frozen up. Then, he slowly peeled the tape from his face before ripping it off entirely to avoid the pain. Leon touched his forehead; thank god, he hadn't removed his eyebrows in the process.

      His sudden ability to see meant his eyes hungrily devoured what he could see around him. Dim moonlight permeated their square shaped and absolutely featureless  cell, pale light glimmered on glistening concrete walls and a stained, damp floor. To their left was a solemn and very sturdy looking set of bars, which to his mind didn't look as if they were going to break in a considerable amount of time. 

      "Great, a prison cell" Leon sighed, scratching his head, before looking upwards. The light came from a circular opening approximately twenty feet above their heads and at the end of a perfectly circular 'tube'. 

 He turned to look at Rebecca. They looked at each other in amusement. She was grimy and generally a mess, but then again so was he.

       "Man" Leon said, shaking his head "You look like shit, Rebecca!"

       "Look who's talking" Rebecca replied, with a smile.

       They looked around, studying the walls for any means of escape.

        "Looks like it was once a sewer or something" Leon muttered "Look at that hole; I bet that's closed most of the time"

        "And I'd bet it's the reason it's so damned cold and wet in here" Rebecca added with a shiver "It's freezing!"

        "No kidding" Leon replied peering at the bars.

        "Looks like a converted sewer" Rebecca remarked "I mean, look at that opening in the roof…"

        "Good point" Leon added, matter of factly. I think the question on everybody's lips now is how the hell do we get out?"

         "Well, there is that opening…" Rebecca suggested.

         "…which is twenty feet above our heads" Leon finished "Nice try anyway"

         Rebecca shrugged, and sat down, running a hand through her chestnut brown hair, sighing deeply.

         "We're stuck, right?"

         "For now, yeah" Leon replied, sinking against the wall opposite her.

       The pair of them was just about ready to accept their difficult situation, when their hearing registered something. It was the sound of footsteps. 

        Leon indicated for Rebeeca to keep quiet, and the both of them held their breath while the footsteps grew ever closer. A silhouette appeared, even in the dim light of the moon they could vaguely see a well-built figure walking; it was an irregular walk, more of a stumble really. They watched the shape, heard the figure cough and then…

        The light bulb illuminated little, but it cast enough light to see more of what lay outside the prison cell. The man was forlorn, face smeared with grime and dry blood. He sat at the desk outside the cell, leaning his elbow on the creaking, dusty wood. It was then he realised Leon and Rebecca were staring at him.

          "What?" he asked, with a throaty voice.

          "Who the hell are you?" Rebecca asked, suspiciously. 

          "A guy you don't know and never will" he said, coldly, turning away to face the wall.

          "She asked a question that required a _real answer." Leon said, a little louder than was necessary._

         The man turned back.

          "It doesn't matter now. It's over. If you so much as step outside you're gonna become a carcass"

          Leon narrowed his eyes.

          "It's that bad outside? I thought this place was 'secure'" 

          "Somebody's messed us up. We didn't know Umbrella were going to leave the rest of us here to die…but they have"

          "What are you talking about?" Rebecca asked, confusedly.

          Stanton glared at them, fire in his eyes.

          "They're either dead or they've become those…things. Umbrella screwed everybody here; we're all going to die"

          Leon looked at him, suspiciously. It was Rebecca who asked the next question.

          "Where are we?" Rebecca asked.

          "South Pacific" Stanton said quickly "What was a secret Umbrella complex, Aguera Island; you were sent here for detention, but it seems the company men had a little extra up their sleeves"

          "So why are you still here?" Leon queried, eyebrow raised.

          "It's not like I had a choice," Stanton snapped "The airfield's on the other side of the island, with all the structural damage done to the place, you'd be lucky to get anywhere" 

           Leon leaned against the bars.

           "So you wouldn't mind letting us out then, huh?"

          The man glared, icily.

           "If I had the keys, then I would; I'm not your jailor."

          Leon cursed under his breath; behind him, he heard Rebecca kick the wall. 

           "The only way out is through that hole above you" Stanton said, waving a hand idly "But you can't get to it; the cover's usually sealed down, but people have had other priorities over the last two days"

           "Two days?" Rebecca asked "We've been here that long?"

           "They had you drugged asleep for the first day and a half; that's why you only just woke up" Stanton explained.  

          That explained the memory loss, Leon reasoned, brain finally engaging.

           "We need to get out" Leon said, leaning towards the bars "Come on! You said yourself Umbrella screwed everybody; we can help you get your own back"

           "I said!" Stanton snapped "I can't help you because I don't have a _key!" _

          "Then why did you come back here?!" Leon replied, sharply.

          "Because it's the only safe place on this whole fucking island!" Stanton almost yelled "I'd rather stay here and die than go out there again!" 

       He winced; Rebecca and Leon looked on, he was clutching a deep gash in his side.

      "What caused that?" Rebecca asked. 

      "A…A cerberus…" Stanton managed "…we know 'em by their technical names…"

      Both Rebecca and Leon knew what a Cerberus was. 

      "They're loose on the island?" Leon said.

      "Everything's frigging loose on this island!" Stanton spat. 

    Suddenly, the room shook, dust fell from the ceiling and a deep grumble rose up from the depths.

      "Oh fuck…" Stanton muttered, "…the pressure regulator's been destroyed…"

      "Is that bad?" Rebecca asked.

     The answer was immediate.

   The sound was like metal being tortured; something was being stretched and bent…

       "Tell me" Leon said, quietly "Does the pressure regulator control the water flow in this place?"

       "Yeah" Stanton replied "Prevents it from rising too high; it controls the water flow from the tank and the swamps above"

        "Which presumably means that…if the pressure rose too high…the pipes would all go…and the place would flood" Leon finished.

        "Yeah" Stanton sighed.

      Rebecca summed up the obvious conclusion in four words:

         "We're going to drown"


	2. Knee Deep in sh

The groaning was getting rapidly louder, the pipes were definitely sounding like they were in trouble now. Leon and Rebecca stepped back as the noise intensified around them; the pipes were now shaking, unable to control the water flow for very much longer.  
"Oh shit..." Leon muttered.  
They watched the pipes on the walls; despite their cell being fairly barren, there were several water pipes on the roof and close to the floor. There were just about enough to turn the room into a water tank in ten minutes flat.  
Rebecca and Leon stared at Stanton, who took one look at them before turning and running, slamming the door to the room behind him.  
"Thanks a lot you asshole!!" Leon bellowed after him.  
"Yeah, next time you ask us for a favour you know where you can stick it!!" Rebecca added.  
They watched the pipes, holding their breath. There was the sound of something rapidly expanding against a metal skin...there was a snapping sound. They stared at one of the rusty pipes, as a crack slowly spread across its metal surface. A fine spray of water misted the air...then the pipe exploded, its surface torn open to unleash a torrent of water sent blasting into the wall. All of the other pipes followed suit, each one cracking and then exploding.  
By the time every pipe was open and pouring its non-stop contents, the room was already ankle deep with water.  
"Jesus!" Leon exclaimed, and turned to Rebecca "If we don't think of something in less than ten minutes, we're going to be at the bottom of a self-made Davy Jones's locker."  
"Can you think of anything?" she asked.  
"No, can you?" Leon replied.  
"No" she finished.  
They both sighed, almost in unison.  
"Crap" Leon said flatly, as the water level rose. Soon, it was lapping just beneath his knees, and he and Rebecca exchanged glances.  
"Well, it was nice knowing you" Rebecca said, with a wan smile.  
"Yeah, you too" Leon replied, shaking her hand "Sorry about all this..." "No problem" she waved a hand dismissively, "Happens all the time"  
Leon sighed.  
"Wished I could have met Claire again...she's a lovely girl..."  
"You want to hook up with her, huh?" Rebecca winked and nudged Leon.  
"Well...yeah, I guess" Leon replied, as the water level slowly went up...then he blinked, and turned back to her "...I'm not doing this"  
"Doing what?" Rebecca asked.  
"Giving up" Leon said "We got some time, right?"  
She nodded firmly.  
"Then I'm not either" Rebecca said simply.  
They waded through the water, to see if the walls were in any danger of buckling; they weren't. The walls of the cell had about as much chance of collapsing as a bear did from a bee-sting.  
The water was flowing quite violently now, the loud rush of water filled their ears.  
"There's go to be some way of getting out!!" Rebecca yelled.  
Leon looked up towards the hole at the end of the circular tube above them. An idea formed in his head. It was harking back to long gone science classes that he had absorbed like a sponge...some basic physics sprang up; when you filled up a thin tube quickly from a flat base, it shot up quickly and spurted out...maybe, just maybe...  
"Rebecca" Leon said, as the water rose up to their shoulders "Swim up to the entrance to that tube!"  
"What the hell will that do?" she asked, confused and frustrated. Then, it clicked with her too "Please say you're kidding!"  
"Well why not?" Leon asked, as they started to push themselves upwards, the water going beyond their heads.  
"Because it's insane!" Rebecca shrieked.  
"And you have any other suggestions?!" Leon shouted back.  
Rebecca looked indignant.  
"Okay!" she said, "I'll follow you on this one; but if it doesn't work-"  
"-if it doesn't work then we're fucked!" Leon said, "Come on!"  
  
They were just beneath the concrete tube, the circular opening looking far but also strangely close now.  
"See you at the other end!!" Leon yelled, as they felt themselves being pushed up by the water pressure from down below. The water blasted them up the tube, the sewer opening rushing to meet them at quite an unsafe velocity.  
Rebecca prayed.  
  
They exploded out of the top of the tube, sent flying into the air by the water blast and shot up for a few seconds before the laws of gravity decided against letting them stay up, and sent them hurtling down to earth.  
Their voices weren't clearly heard through the rushing water, but then two voices could be clearly heard; both saying the same thing.  
"Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!"  
Rebecca and Leon fell and landed with force into the damp ground surrounding the sewer hole, both of them soaked to the skin. They lay for a few moments, spluttering and gasping, water dripping heavily from them. Then, the pair of them staggered to their feet.  
As they walked unsteadily through the damp ground, the first person to speak was Rebecca.  
"Geeeee-zus!" she managed, as the pair of them fell against a muddy bank "That was...an experience I want to forget quickly"  
"I told you it'd work, didn't I?" Leon panted, with a smirk "Heh. Good idea, huh?"  
"Oh sure..." Rebecca said, "...it...nearly drowned us but...hey...it did work"  
She weakly patted him in the back.  
"We're exhausted and we haven't even started yet" Leon groaned, as the pair of them raced to get their breath back "...I...think it'd be best if we checked out where the hell we are..."  
They lay there, looking at the water still spraying out of the ground, almost hypnotised by it.  
"Leon..." Rebecca said, after a while "Tell me, did all this sort of thing happen to you often when you were in Racoon City?"  
"Nearly all the time" Leon replied.  
"Figures"  
The pair of them stood up, and blinked any excess water out of their eyes. It looked like they were in some kind of sump, or drainage ditch. Looking above them, they saw a chain link fence lining the top of the bank.  
"Well..." Leon sighed, "...at least we can see the next logical step"  
  
They climbed, sodden and bedraggled, up towards the metal fence. At first they had worried that it would be difficult to get over; but the huge gash that had been torn in the fence provided both an entrance and a worry.  
"That Stanton guy was right" Leon murmured.  
"Looks like there are plenty of creatures loose here whether we like it or not..." Rebecca added, nodding. Leon pulled himself through the hole in the fence, Rebecca slipping through afterward. They stood in a large compound, supply crates stacked up against the boundaries of this open area. Exits to the area seemed to be constructed almost entirely of chain- link, although they could see plain concrete buildings in the mid-distance, sombre and lacking in architectural grace. It was floodlit with orange light, which had a somewhat strange effect on the eyes. The gates between the buildings seemed large enough for the forklift trucks that stood abandoned at the edges of the open space in front of them.  
"Looks like some kind of loading area" Rebecca noted, gazing at the enormous stacks of crates.  
"Funny, the power's still on" Leon said, narrowing his eyes "I thought this place was a mess?"  
"It could be" Rebecca replied, nudging Leon. She pointed, he looked; in the darkness were flickers of flame...obviously this area had managed to sustain any structural damage it might have received.  
"I don't know about you..." Leon said, turning to her "...but that gash in the fence doesn't look particularly like damage from a bomb..."  
Rebecca nodded, her face agreeing with the implication of that.  
"I think we'd better move" Rebecca whispered, hurriedly.  
Leon nodded.  
"Let's go, before we-" he said, but he was interrupted by a reptilian snarl. The pair of them froze, and exchanged a worried glance.  
"Does that sound good to you?" she asked.  
"Nuh-uh" he replied, shaking his head.  
Leon and Rebecca walked as quietly as they could manage, trying to prevent their boots from making sounds on the concrete paved-ground but the task was next to impossible; after being blown out of a water pipe and a thorough soaking, the rubber of their boots seemed hell bent on squeaking as loudly as possible. As they made their way towards one of the chain link doors, they heard the snarl again. Leon and Rebecca spun around.  
The creatures were not ones that Leon recognised, but Rebecca sure remembered them. She gulped, her breathing a little too fast for comfort. They stood on two feet, and despite being hunched looked as if every muscle was in total control. Their flesh was green and muscled, lizard-like heads sporting huge razor sharp teeth and slitted yellow eyes, and huge claws, as sharp as their teeth on hands and feet.  
"What are they?" Leon said through the corner of his mouth, as they both walked backwards.  
"H...Hunters" Rebecca replied, while the Hunters advanced slowly on them.  
"Is that what they're called..." Leon managed, heart thumping as he frantically patted his pockets "...we don't have any weapons"  
"What do you suggest we do?" Rebecca asked, a sliver of panic working its away into her voice.  
The two Hunters bared their teeth again, a reptilian growl echoing around the courtyard.  
"Running would be a very good idea" Leon answered; and on cue, both of them turned and ran for it, feet hitting the ground hard as they fled towards the exit. The Hunter's screeched, the sound of a predator in the heat of the hunt. The hunted were currently heading for the exit at speed. They reached the gate, Leon yanked it open and the pair of them jumped through, slamming it shut and pulling the latch down just as the hunters powered into the strong metal gate. They hissed, snarled and shrieked but they couldn't break it.  
"Well" Leon breathed a sigh of relief as the pair of them broke into a walk, making their way down the supply corridor walled by chain-link fences "...at least we held them off"  
"Yeah" Rebecca said, with a smile.  
There was a soul-crushing clunk behind them. They turned around, to stare back at the gate. The latch had been pulled up, and the gate was swinging outwards...the two Hunters, claws clicking on the ground, advanced inside.  
Only fifteen metres lay between Rebecca and Leon and the two Hunters.  
"They can open doors...?" Leon murmured.  
"Uh...so it seems." Rebecca replied, staring at the Hunters.  
"Typical." Leon remarked, before in a comical repetition of the minutes before hand, they ran again. The Hunters were closer now, the clicking of their claws seemed to get closer no matter how hard they ran; they just kept their heads down and sprinted for all they were worth. Just as they were beginning to run out of steam, a door loomed ahead in one of the concrete buildings from earlier; even if there were things inside, whatever was in there seemed immediately more appealing than what lay outside of it. Leon reached it first, yanking the handle and pulling it open.  
"INSIDE!" he bellowed; Rebecca hurled herself inside, and Leon followed suit, slamming it shut with a solid metal bang, Leon then twisted the lock. The pair of them sighed in belated relief, sagging against the door. The Hunters muffled screeching could still be heard...but they couldn't get in; and eventually, the creatures gave up. Soon, there was silence inside.  
"Now," Rebecca panted, "What's inside?" 


	3. Escape & Lost Memories

What was inside actually transpired to be very little. It was a maintenance station with little to it other than a small office with a radio and a heater for the chill. They took full advantage of this, after Leon smashed the window of the door with his elbow. They pulled their shirts off and flung them on the heater. Leon couldn't help but blush slightly as Rebecca removed her own shirt. Okay, so she wasn't his girlfriend but he was still human, and her slender, well-proportioned body wasn't unpleasant to look at; she was nineteen after all. By the same token, Rebecca wasn't entirely displeased with the sight of Leon's bare chest as he removed his shirt. He had survived Raccoon for a reason, and Rebecca had an unobscured view of his muscles.  
Rebecca and Leon both looked away, however. Rebecca knew they had to survive a great deal, and a possible tryst with someone whose heart seemed to belong to Claire Redfield...well. It also wouldn't please Claire a huge amount if Claire happened to have interest in the young cop, and found that Rebecca had also developed something of a crush on Leon. Which to a slight extent, she had. Now was not the time to consider anything like that of course.  
"Um..." she said, chewing her lip "...you don't feel awkward doing this do you?"  
"Oh, you mean the..." he pointed awkwardly at her and then at him "...bare skin thing."  
"That's it, yes." she said.  
"Well, let's look at this situation realistically" Leon remarked, making a mental note of some spare technician zip-up suits hanging on the wall "Friends is good enough for me, and considering we don't know where we are or what we're doing here, the last thing on our minds should be our respective bodies."  
"Yeah." Rebecca considered this "Okay, let's just get changed then long enough for our clothes to dry off a bit."  
There was a pause.  
"Well" Rebecca added, a tad sourly "Are you going to ogle me whilst I change? I saw the technician suits too"  
"Jesus, okay!" Leon snapped, turning around. Things were back to normal, and he turned around. "Although it's not like you didn't look at me..."  
"What?! That's bullshit!" she exclaimed, in outrage; it was true that she had taken a good look at him, but because it didn't sound like typical of her behaviour, she decided on outrage.  
"Did so"  
"Did not!"  
"Did-look, how old are we?"  
Rebecca grumbled, and zipped up the suit.  
"Okay, I'm done. Your turn."  
  
They sat as close to the heater as they could, despite its main function, which was to at least partially dry their soaked clothes. The hunters weren't of any real interest anymore, as they had lost interest in their prey. At least so it seemed, but there were no sounds coming from the door anymore. A quick search of the office had revealed a staff log, a map and a key ring, and while they decided they would keep the key ring it was decided that a study of the map might reveal where they would actually need to use it. Leon spread the map out, patting down the corners and weighing them down with a red stapler and a paperweight.  
"Okay..." Leon murmured, as he studied the layout "...we're in this hexagonal compound here, at least that's what the map tells us."  
He tapped part of the map. Rebecca peered at the peculiar shaped of the compound, sketched out in scaled lines. It was labelled in clear stencilling 'Detention Compound'  
"Oh great" Rebecca groaned, "We're still in jail. All we did was get out of our cell."  
Leon shook the keys in front of Rebecca's eyes.  
"See. Keys. Doors. Locks."  
Rebecca did not particularly appreciate being on the receiving end of Leon's cynicism, especially when all she wanted to do was get out of the place.  
"I know Leon, but the place is surely more secure than that? What about key-cards and the like?"  
"If there are any, I'm pretty sure we'll find them" Leon said, then decided to look at the map in a larger context "Where the hell are we anyway?"  
"Looks like another island" Rebecca groaned "I swear, Umbrella probably own all the off-shore islands in the world."  
"This one..." Leon said, studying a small printed label on the ocean "...is about two-hundred miles east of Australia. Great. Miles of fucking water on either side."  
They sat there, glaring at the map as if it somehow was responsible for their own situation. Naturally, such an environmental position narrowed down their methods of escape to one by plane and another by boat, although whether or not they would last long enough to get to either was something else entirely. That was if escape was the first thing they should do. What kind of an island was this anyway? Leon took a casual look at the name of the island, written in clear red print over the ocean. The Proteus Labs.  
Leon felt his blood freeze as he read the title. The Proteus Labs.  
"Rebecca, look where we are" he said, pointing a chilly finger at the words.  
She followed his finger, and her face slowly transformed from one of a stubborn sulk to one of fear and surprise.  
"My god" she said "We're only in the belly of the beast, aren't we?"  
Leon nodded in agreement. The Proteus Labs were something of a legend in Umbrella lore; they'd seen references to it in the records they had successfully stolen from other Umbrella labs, but nobody, not even some of the high-ranking officials of White Umbrella knew where they were. It was uncertain if even Wesker knew. This of course would make it doubly difficult for anyone to find them; there was also the problem that the labs may have taken a fair pounding from the bombing the island had been receiving. However, the chance of finding out what lay deep in the Proteus lab complex was too tempting even for them. The rumours they had heard said that the Proteus Labs weren't simply viral research buildings, but the black heart of Umbrella's genetic manipulation directive. Their human experiments; the original concept lab for the Tyrant and their attempts to create genetically modified soldiers, everything the anti-Umbrella resistance could do without. It was also, the stories said, the most advanced of all of the labs Umbrella possessed – its isolation reflected just how far Umbrella liked to keep it from reconnaissance. And in a massive twist towards the ironic, both Rebecca and Leon were there, formerly prisoners and now almost free to go about the complex.  
"Of course there's going to be hunters and Cerberuses loose" Leon said "So we'll have to keep an eye out. I also don't doubt that the T-Virus has been spread by some of the carriers."  
Rebecca shook her head in wonder.  
"Man...wow. This is just too weird. It's unreal; who'd have thought this place even existed, it's like King Solomon's silver mines"  
"Well, we'd best..."  
Leon paused. Then he winced as a keening began to sound in his head.  
Rebecca looked at Leon's pained expression.  
"Leon? Are you ok-?"  
Then she felt it too, a squealing whistle that cut through her brain like a buzzsaw. Rebecca gasped at the sheer intensity of the sensation, clutching her head as if it was about to burst open with the pressure.  
"Fuuuck...!!" Leon exclaimed, gritting his teeth in pain.  
White out.  
Proteus...  
Proteus...  
Proteus... Picture the largest computer you've ever seen, picture two men standing beside it making notes. Picture red stencilled letters.  
Lab Proteus 1.  
"Okay Xavier, let's go over those results one more time" "Yes sir..." A pause. A faceless figure turns to face him. "Hello, what are you doing here?"  
Another pause. The men are dressed as scientists, both holding clipboards. Everything is fuzzy, like a bad quality black and white movie. The room is vast, almost cavernous; it's a computer metropolis, like a single mechanical organism. The scientists are standing by a console with a vast glass screen in front of them. "Hey guys, you're not supposed to be in here; go on, play somewhere else. Then the face of a little girl with pigtails, a small chubby face bunched up in a sulk. "Aww, don't look like that, go on, you can play in the staff room" One reaches down...  
Leon's eyes snapped open as the pain suddenly stopped. Rebecca stared back at him.  
"Did you see that too?" she asked, quietly.  
Leon nodded, rubbing his head.  
"As clear as day...what the hell was that?" he said, still staring at her.  
"I don't know, but either way we both felt it" she replied, looking at the tips of her shoes "It was like a dream. But it wasn't a dream because...it felt too real."  
"What did you see?" Leon asked, leaning forward.  
Rebecca furrowed her brow.  
"I saw two scientists, they were doing some routine work...I was staring up at them, they spoke to me."  
"Same here" Leon said, sitting back up before staring up at the utility grey ceiling. What had that been? It was as if him and Rebecca had just shared a joint...well...for lack of a better word 'flashback'. Where this flashback could possibly come from and why he and Rebecca saw it was something that he couldn't explain. Leon was hoping it was just a one-off.  
"Come on" Rebecca said, standing up "Let's shove our clothes in a bag or something and get going. I want to get into that Proteus lab."  
Leon nodded. He just wanted to get in and out as soon as possible, it was clear Rebecca didn't want to experience anything else like they just had; it had left both of them shaken. Leon didn't want to tell her, but he had a suspicion that wouldn't be the last time they'd feel that.  
  
Leon secured the kitbag he'd found in one of the lockers to his back, and turned to Rebecca.  
"Ready?"  
Rebecca loaded the second tranquilliser gun and handed it to Leon. The guns had also been in the locker, although they had been dismayed to see there were no pistols or rifles designed specifically for the kill. The tranquillisers however, as Rebecca estimated from the dosage printed in very small print on each dart, were extremely potent.  
"I'm ready. There's about seven rounds, so make it count. Expect quick results, that stuff's powerful enough to knock an elephant on its ass in about a minute flat."  
Leon whistled, looking at the shining black tranquilliser rifle.  
"Strong stuff. How long does it last?"  
"Let's just say long enough; I don't know who they loaded all this stuff for, but its definitely got some of the most powerful animal sedatives I've ever seen; I'd be boring you to death with the contents, but it's a strong cocktail. So make sure you don't hit me, okay?"  
Leon smirked at her. "Don't bet on that" Rebecca put on an expression that said 'oh Leon that was back-breakingly funny', and clicked the safety catch off of her own weapon. The plan was simple, Leon knew; a dash for the entrance to the compound, lock the entrance behind them and then find their way into the Proteus Labs. He flinched as those words went through his head; they were for some reason, oddly familiar. Not in the manner of a remembered conversation, but as if it were some ancient parasite that had awoken in his memory to haunt him. Leon paused as the flashback ran through his head again and again and again. It was like a distant memory, faint but frighteningly vivid. What it meant he didn't know, but what he did know was that neither had been completely honest with the other. The little girl Leon had seen didn't remind him of anyone he knew, and Rebecca's failure to mention it suggested she was somewhat timid to remind him of what it was she had seen. If she'd seen the same girl.  
Right now however, he thought as he clicked off his safety catch, it wasn't important. The urge to stay alive was what was important. "Okay. The map says there's the main compound entrance is just beyond the gate at the end of this intersection. A dash or two should get us there. If we get any hunters following, we don't look back. Got it?"  
Rebecca nodded.  
"And remember, if a hunter checks in..."  
"...it doesn't check out" Rebecca finished.  
Leon turned, and with a strong kick that packed just enough force per square inch to send the opposite door of the small building tearing open, he bolted out, followed closely by Rebecca into the dark, dangerous night.  
The floodlights were working, so their path ahead was illuminated like a runway, rain gleaming on the concrete. They ran, snarls echoing in from the darkness beyond the chain-link fence as they dodged packing cases and didn't stop to look at sprawled corpses that littered the ground, but kept their eyes focused on the small metal door up ahead that was rapidly growing larger.  
The snarling all around them grew louder into an angry roar; Leon felt his heart jump as two dark shapes sailed out of the darkness, landing lightly some distance behind him as he ran. With their familiar blood- hungry baying, the two creatures tore in pursuit of them.  
Leon turned briefly and pulled the trigger on his rifle, in the hope the sound at least might slow them down. The vicious crack seemed to alarm the hunters little, although he did notice that the dart had sunk itself deep into the hunter closest behind them. Leon didn't stop however; his heart was in his throat, blood pounding through his veins in the knowledge something that could kill him messily was directly behind him. In a desperate attempt to keep them as far away as possible, he turned and fired at the other one twice, one of the darts missing by about a foot, but the other sinking itself by a hairs breadth into a muscular green arm. Rebecca had edged ahead of him, and was nearly at the door.  
One of the hunters suddenly lurched and toppled to the floor, the tranquilliser kicking in as the creature grunted and fell unconscious. The other was still going however, and it wasn't making things any easier on them, particularly when Rebecca got to the door. She scanned the lock. To her horror, it was not a conventional lock. There were six different keylocks, with a small warning written on a sign that effectively informed them that if they didn't make the correct combination of lock bypasses, then the door would not only seal itself permanently, but it would also activate a flamethrower that would most certainly burn Rebecca to a crisp, and sure as not kill Leon too. Rebecca read the words with dread in her heart, and felt panic start to spread through her system. Leon arrived beside her, breathless.  
"The hunter's not far behind" Leon gasped, turning to look at the sign "Why's the door not open?"  
"I don't know!" Rebecca snapped, "There's a key combination!"  
"Work on it!" Leon replied, turning to see the Hunter stalking towards him with a primal hiss.  
"What the fuck do you think I'm doing, Kennedy?!" Rebecca snapped, studying the lock "I was trained as a medic, not a locksmith"  
"You're not picking the damned thing, surely there's a logical combination?" Leon said, edging along the fence as the Hunter who didn't appear to care much for Rebecca, and instead grinned at Leon with its enormous jaws and fangs.  
"Hang on, hang on!"  
Leon cursed, because he couldn't hang on for long. He made eye contact with the yellow-eyed creature from hell, staring into its eyes as it snarled angrily at him. Leon saw nothing apart from raging anger and bloodlust; he'd have to play his next move carefully.  
The creature bellowed an ear-splitting sound, then it leapt at Leon. He hurled himself to one side as it crunched into the railings, but then immediately kicked off the metal supports into the air. It landed heavily in front of Leon, and with a snarl brought its mighty claw downward. Leon rolled again, feverishly readying the tranquilliser for another shot. He fired awkwardly, but due to its point blank range it wasn't likely to miss. The creature shrieked in annoyance at the stinging dart, and prepared itself for another lunge. Leon noticed the earlier dart lodged in its arm.  
Come on, work, work...he thought. Finally, someone answered his prayer. The hunter paused in its attack, then with a growl, it sank face-down onto the concrete, out like a light.  
Leon held his breath to make sure that that was the end of it. When the hunter didn't move, he kicked it. It rocked, but didn't stand up. He sighed, and turned to Rebecca, who was still fiddling with the lock.  
"Any luck?"  
Rebecca turned to him, looking unimpressed with the question.  
"No?"  
"No. Unless by some ridiculous twist of deus ex machina, we're not going to get this door open in a hurry."  
There was an odd grinding noise followed by a high-pitched hiss. The fact it was coming from beyond the door gave Rebecca cause to step back with a deeply concerned expression on her face. As they both recognised the smell of gas, they saw beyond the fence, one of the slow burning fires caused by the damage of the bombs. The fire flickered ominously close to the gate.  
Leon opened his mouth, but he didn't have time to form a syllable; there was one intensely loud explosion, a ball of ignited gas propelling the gate from its frame and sending it spinning across the compound. The roof of the gatehouse erupted volcanically, fire streaking into the sky like a comet. The sheer pressure of the explosion had lifted both Rebecca and Leon off of their feet, and they rolled across the ground as the thundering firestorm raged, and then stopped. All that was left of the gatehouse was a charred frame and what looked like a bonfire settling comfortably into the dirt of the ground. Leon gasped, and looked up with stinging eyes.  
"What the hell was that?" he managed. He looked at Rebecca, who shared his facial collection of sweat, dirt and smoke.  
"I...dunno" Rebecca choked "By the...sound of it...a gas canister must have exploded..."  
They helped each other up, and staggered through the choking smoke and into the compound on the other side. The carcasses of several high-pressure oxygen cylinders lay spent on the ground, Rebecca and Leon staggering back from the sheer heat.  
"At any rate" Leon said, looking at the keys "I doubt we'll be needing many of these anymore..."  
  
The explosion had temporarily blinded the camera, but it resumed working operations a minute later. Dr. Larson watched the slightly fuzzy image with particular interest; he was waiting for something specific, something he knew would appear...  
And it did. The two figures stumbled out of the fire, choking on smoke. His eyes gleamed. Larson had heard the rumours that Umbrella had stuffed some prisoners into the detention centre and then got out before their capable military systems could respond – it had transpired as true, but Larson felt undisguised glee at their absurd miscalculation. He captured an image of the two figures, faces luminescent in the night-vision camera. It was them alright. He smiled as he looked at the frozen image; a smile of satisfaction.  
The last two alive, and Umbrella had delivered them with a bow. He transferred the image to a disk, and slipped the disk out of the drive. Larson pushed his chair back, and left his office to find Dr. Peterson, his supervisor. The corridors were clean, metallic and almost empty. The staff was a skeleton, the only large scale employment in the private army bunked up in the barracks in the inner compound. They were well-paid men and women, and kept the staff 'safe' in a sense. Neither force really met unless there was a real emergency, like some of the escaped animals in the outer-compound areas had somehow escaped. The inner-compound was almost impregnable. Of course, sacrifices had had to be made. The extensive bombing of the outer buildings had killed a lot of staff members, and the survivors were killed by an assorted menagerie of Cerberuses, Hunters, Lickers and maybe zombies, depending on the strength of the T-Virus flowing through the creature's blood.  
Not here though. It was small, but astonishingly well defended. He walked at a brisk trot, whistling as he reached a turn in the corridor. It was a brief trip to the laboratory computer room, which was abuzz with activity and the thrumming of supercomputers. At the forefront of this technological hub stood Dr. Peterson, a man in late middle age who was nearly a decade Larson's senior; he certainly showed it too. Wrinkles were starting to pinch at his worn face, and his hair was thinning on top, but his eyes burned with a ferocity that belied his age.  
He approached with little hesitancy.  
"Dr Peterson?"  
Peterson twisted his head slightly to eye his younger subordinate.  
"Well?"  
It was a statement and less of a question.  
"It's them sir. We're positive now."  
Peterson was visibly pleased by this information. He smiled a genuine smile of...Well, Larson guessed it had to be pleasure. It was an odd display however, one cut between nostalgia and satisfaction.  
"They've come home" Peterson said simply, still smiling in that odd way "The children have returned home."  
He turned to face his subordinate face on for the first time.  
"I want them to be met by a squad of our finest. Remember, nobody must die. If anything, I want the troops to escort them voluntarily."  
Larson nodded.  
"Okay, I'll make sure they're not killed."  
"We want them to be welcomed." Peterson said, flatly. This was not a double-edged statement, Larson knew, 'welcome' defined as 'welcome' to Peterson and not 'meet them with one hundred assault rifles bent on mutilating them'. Larson made sure to notify Major Renfro of this point.  
"I'll do that right now sir"  
Peterson turned around, smiling at the lab technicians at work in sterilized suits. He had been waiting for this for a very long time; and nobody was going to ruin his plans. 


	4. A surprising turn of events

Leon and Rebecca plodded through the yard, heat at their backs. The main gates loomed ahead of them, steel monoliths studded with iron bolts that masqueraded as doors.  
"What do you think would get those things open?" Leon said.  
"An act of god" Rebecca replied without hesitation. Leon inspected the walls; twenty metres high and topped with barbed wire. There had to be a break in the defences of the building somewhere. The bombing had clearly been extensive, but not extensive enough for their liking; indeed, the less of Umbrella's structures left the better. However, they were still stuck. The doors did not look as if they were going to open anytime soon. Stepping closer, the doors looked no less solid. The enormous bolt drawn across the doors appeared to be moveable, but Leon doubted he would be able to push the doors open by himself.  
"Seriously" Leon mused, scratching his head "How do you open a pair of doors like that?"  
"It might take a forklifter, but I don't think anyone would be kind enough to leave any around" Rebecca said, scanning the dirt compound. It was quite large actually, and the buildings seemed to accommodate a number of utilitarian needs...including a garage.  
"What do you reckon about that place?" Rebecca asked, tapping Leon on the shoulder and pointing at the corrugated metal doors.  
Leon nodded.  
"I think it's the closest we're going to get" he replied.  
  
The garage was much like the other buildings; grey and dreary, if pumped full of that familiar gasoline smell that garages always possess. Grease and oil streaked the floor of the sodden air; it was a surprise what with all the flammable liquids that this building hadn't gone up like a haystack. Rebecca was re-evaluating her opinion of the men who had dropped explosives on the complex, because in her opinion if you couldn't hit a forty-by-forty metre building filled with fuel then you shouldn't really be a janitor, let alone a pilot.  
Leon surveyed the small vehicle pool available. Of the five vehicles, there was only one that seemed even vaguely suited to their needs. The truck was bulky, but didn't look like anybody had used it in a small ice age. Dust tarnished whatever paint-job in the dark grey shade the vehicle had once possessed. He had doubts that it would even move. It was filled with heavy industrial equipment, mostly steel rods and cables that had clearly never been used.  
Rebecca hopped down beside the truck, and made her way towards the engine. She reached for the hood gingerly, as if it were about to explode, and lifted it up. Inside was an engine that seemed to be intact, with every component where it should be. Rebecca pulled the stopper off of the fuel tank, and took a sniff. It smelled strong, but Rebecca could see in the cool white light of the strip-bulbs above her head that the tank lacked any kind of fuel.  
Leon came up beside her.  
"Well?" he asked, expectant of disaster.  
"I'm no mechanic, but the engine looks fine. Needs fuel though." Leon sighed in relief, feeling that sensation of achievement start to well up inside of him like an oil well.  
"There's plenty of that" he said, turning to face some red-painted fuel drums stacked up against the wall that he had seen a minute ago "So, we have a working vehicle, theoretically. All that's left to do is work out how we're going to get the thing through the doors without us in it."  
  
Rebecca nodded in comprehension, her brown eyes full of thought. It would be too dangerous to hit the doors full on with them inside the vehicle, as sturdy metal doors would have a visible effect on the engine and the windshield. Not wanting to imagine what it would be like if one were hit by a metal gate in the face, Leon tried to conjure up a plan. Leon was bright, but Rebecca was more scientifically minded and it was she who came up with the plan.  
"How about this" she said, leaning against the dusty hood "We fix up the accelerator with a prop so it keeps a steady speed, we start from a far enough distance away. The driver keeps the wheel steady for just about long enough for the truck to hit the doors at ninety, he jumps out about ten seconds in. Sound good?"  
"Sounds like there's a high risk factor..." Leon said, "But it seems to me like the best plan we have. Right, I'll start with the fuel you see what you can find prop-wise." After five minutes, they were ready. Rebecca had found a huge spanner that was just about big enough to keep the pedal pressed down.  
"Keep the brakes on, then attach it; fix it with this" she said, producing some industrial sticking tape she had found amongst the tools "Then we just pray the damn thing stays straight."  
Leon nodded, and threw the materials into the passenger seat before jumping up into the drivers one. Rebecca licked her lips. She hadn't known Leon for that long really, but it would kill her to see him die in this highly risky plan she had come up with. Without him, her black and white memory wouldn't make sense. What to say?  
"Um...Leon" she called, prompting him to turn back to her.  
"Yeah?" he replied calmly, as if he didn't know what he was doing was certain death.  
"Um...take care" she said, hopelessly. He smiled, and winked.  
"Hey. It's me!" he replied, slamming the door shut. And that's what I'm afraid of Rebecca thought, giving him a cheerful wave and running to the garage door. She hit the button that slid the grille up into the ceiling, and ran out into the warm air. Rebecca's mind was on making sure the damned door was at least unlocked and as vulnerable as possible to the impact. She reached the door quickly, and studied the locks. Only a latch, a bolt and a chunky padlock. Rebecca smiled to herself as she withdrew the key ring.  
To give credit to Umbrella, she thought as she quickly found the key and pulled the enormous chain off of the bolt lock they always leave keys just lying around. God bless apathy.  
She stared at the mighty bolt with trepidation, but decided that she might as well try. She flexed the muscles in her hands, and grasped the handle. She pushed. The bolt was damned heavy, and Rebecca felt her veins swell up to engorged proportions as she strained at the slow moving hunk of metal. With the padlock on, nobody would be able to open it. But after a few minutes, she was able to slide it into the unlocked position. She gasped at the intensity of it, her muscles screaming at her as she let go. Rebecca looked up to see Leon in the truck, backing the unwieldy beast far across the compound. She gave the thumbs up. "READY!" she yelled, and ran over to one side.  
  
Leon felt sweat drip down his forehead as the engine snarled beneath the hood. One single fault, and he would be deader than a quarter-pounder. Uttering a silent prayer that he would get through this alive, he pushed the accelerator down. The tyres screeched, but didn't move. Quickly, Leon fixed the spanner down and taped it with as much tape as he could manage to the lower-glovebox. He looked ahead, and saw the small figure of Rebecca giving him the thumbs up. Leon flickered the headlights in response.  
He sat up straight, hands on the wheel. He thought of his vision, of that small girl he didn't know, of those shadowy faces he also didn't know, thought of Rebecca, thought of Claire...He was hinging one hell of a lot on this drive. Leon swallowed with a dry throat...and let go of the brake. The truck roared, and took off with surprising speed. The buildings, some tumbled down and flaming shot past him as the truck gathered up to horrendous speed. He stared ahead at the rapidly approaching gate. Six. Seven. Eight. It had to be close enough, it had to be... Nine. Ten. Yelling an expletive he wasn't sure anyone knew but him, he held the wheel steady before kicking the door open and throwing himself out into the dirt, landing hard on his side in the damp ground. He looked up to see the truck continuing towards the gate...and to his horror saw it swerve slightly; no, it couldn't end like this...!  
However, the fates were with Leon and Rebecca this day. The truck hit the gate at approximately eighty miles per hour. The doors moaned and in one second, they crunched on top of the truck, landing heavily onto the now non-existent windshield. The truck carried on through the gate, before with a tremendous crash finally coming to rest. Leon exhaled. Then he exhaled again. He was alive. And judging by the figure staggering to her feet somewhat shakily, so was Rebecca. He smirked. "Yeeeeehaaaaww!!" Rebecca crowed, as Leon stood up to meet her, adrenaline backwash hitting him too now.  
"Rock and roll!!" he yelled, and the partners-in-crime did a triumphant high-five.  
Their gambit had worked.  
"Man, what were the chances of that working?" Leon managed in between laughs.  
"Hey, that was my plan!" Rebecca retorted, also still laughing.  
"That's what I meant" Leon smirked. However, their laughter dulled as they heard another sound. The roar of an engine. No, several engines. As they started to take in this new information, sleek black trucks poured into the compound, screeching to a halt in the dirt and as Leon and Rebecca watched, saw up to maybe fifty soldiers pouring out of the rear of the vehicles. Aghast, the pair stared at the soldiers lining up and cocking their rifles. The snapping sound of fifty assault rifles as their safety catches were clicked off froze Leon and Rebecca to the spot.  
"Stay where you are!" One of the men barked, face hidden behind a black gasmask as he and his troops quickly established an entrapment formation around the stunned pair. "Were they waiting for us?" Rebecca asked with a great deal of anxiety, turning to Leon for answers. Leon didn't really know what to say. All he could do was stare dumbly as the soldiers advanced on him. It was when they started manhandling him that he started to react; as the hands of two troops clamed firmly on his arms, Leon tried with all his might to disentangle himself from them.  
"Get the hell off me you umbrella assholes!" Leon cursed, as he gritted his teeth with each forceful effort to throw off the troopers.  
"Shut up" said one of them harshly, and smashed Leon hard in the stomach with the butt of his assault rifle. Leon gasped loudly, and was left bent double and wheezing. Rebecca snapped forward in the grip of the troops who now had a grip on her.  
"Leave him alone you bastards!" One of the soldiers turned angrily to the other.  
"Did you listen? He said 'One piece and preferably in good condition'! You deaf or something?"  
"If the cat has claws, then ya need to declaw him." the other soldier snapped back.  
"Come on, let's get 'em both onto the truck"  
Rebecca was prodded with the barrel of the assault rifle, Leon pulled up by the soldiers and dragged towards the open back of one of the black trucks the troops had arrived in. Legs still kicking futilely, Rebecca was hoisted aboard, followed by a less resistant and still sorely winded Leon. As the last of them leapt onto the rear of the truck, he banged the roof with the flat of his palm. With a roar the engine flared into life again, and at the head of a small convoy of trucks they began to pull out of the compound and into the darkness, bumping savagely on the uneven dirt track that led out of the compound.  
Leon managed to get most of his breath back after a great deal of panting and gasping, and looked up at his new captors. All dressed in black combat uniforms, all gun-toting, all faceless men. None of them, to his surprise, wore any insignia of any description whatsoever. Leon stole a look at Rebecca, whose eyes locked with his. They didn't speak, but their facial expressions said something else: Who are these people?  
The truck rattled along, only the sounds of the night and the distant cry of some T-Virus variant occasionally punctuated the taut silence. Leon was aware that the tranquilizer rifle he had possessed was on the now far behind dirt ground of the detention compound, and since every single one of the weapons pointed at him was in the hands of an elite, hard to fool soldier with an itchy trigger finger he decided it would be propitious not to do anything. Nobody spoke for a long time. Then, from the front of the truck, a soldier who appeared to be the commander climbed over the passenger seat and into the rear of the truck. He pulled his mask off, underneath revealing a face that was a collection of scars on a cliff face; his eyes were cool and sharp, every single muscle under perfect athletic control. His hair was short and greying slightly, but he did not lack in any physical department.  
The man looked at Leon and Rebecca slowly as if taking in every single detail of their faces, every imperfection or curve. Much to their surprise, a smile then etched across the cliff-like face.  
"Well, it's been a long time. You haven't changed." The manner in which he said it unsettled Leon; if only because of the tone of familiarity was using. Leon had never seen this man before in his life, why would he know who he was? Rebecca too was dumbfounded. The man was greeting them like old friends. At that moment, something triggered in the back of Rebecca's brain, a black and white image that was distorted and fuzzy, but familiar. An image of this face, if less careworn and younger; a name that surfaced in Rebecca's consciousness. It was...it was...  
"Jackson?" Rebecca and Leon said, then snapped their mouths closed as they exchanged a shocked glance. Not only in perfect synchronicity, but the same name too. Leon was starting to severely doubt his own mental state as the soldier chuckled. His smile broadened.  
"Heh. You remember me. Remember anything else?" Rebecca stared at him. No, nothing. A blank.  
"I've...never seen you before in my life." Rebecca said, somewhat confusedly.  
Jackson's eyebrows hitched up in a befuddled frown  
"What the hell are you talking about?"  
"She is telling the truth" Leon said, trying to free his hands from the plastic strip they'd bound them in "I've never seen you before either. Either there's been some massive mistake or..."  
'But how did you know his name?' Leon asked himself 'You've never seen him before and yet...' Somehow in some weird way, the man was familiar. Nothing overt, just a vague sense of reality regarding this man's place in his world.  
"Nah, it's you alright" Jackson said, shaking his head "You've grown a bit, but you're sure as hell the same people."  
"Who?" Leon pressed him, keen to find out who it was this man thought he was.  
"Oh, of course" Jackson said, slapping his forehead "The memory thing. Sorry 'bout that. You'll know in time"  
Leon's frustration at being left in the dark came out almost as Rebecca's did, except her outburst was louder.  
"Are you guys Umbrella? Who the hell are you and why did you capture us?!" she snapped.  
Jackson's smile merely broadened.  
"Heh. The same feistiness you always had. That's my Becca."  
The shock from Rebecca and Leon emanated from them like ripples in a pond of memory.  
"How do you...?" Rebecca began.  
"I know who you are alright, Rebecca. You too Leon" he nodded at Leon "Both of you spunky as hell. Memories, huh?" he took a breath "This might be difficult for you to understand right now, but we're not Umbrella. We're not technically anybody, really. Which is why you guys are such a coup."  
Rebecca was losing her tenuous grip on what it was she knew.  
"Me and Leon...we were trying to destroy Umbrella's Sydney labs, we got captured and thrown into a detention centre here. We barely know where we are, so I don't see how we could possibly-"  
She was cut off by a shout from the driver.  
"Okay, we're there! Prepare to disembark boys and girls!" Jackson nodded to the soldiers, who promptly stood up, hauling up a still confused Leon and a bewildered Rebecca with them, and dragged them out of the back of the truck with little resistance. Leon screwed up his eyes; the light was intense. Powerful artificial lights beamed down on the startled pair like the sun, except these were coming from thousand watt lamps that dotted the compound they now stood in. It wasn't like the prison. This place was in pristine condition; every light worked, every window glowed through slatted blinds. Soldiers patrolled the concrete compound mechanically, their march so precise it could have been measured on a metronome. It was swarming with activity. As the other trucks slowed to a stop, three mechanics in orange boiler suits sprinted out towards the vehicles to coo over the dented paintwork. Leon looked up.  
"Fuck me" he muttered.  
Rebecca also looked.  
"I concur. Fuck." She added, in a small voice. The building in front of them was immense. It was like a fortress from the medieval period, recreated in steel and concrete so that it looked like the world's largest nuclear bunker combined with office block. It rose so high there were three outside 'battlements', the upper platform adorned with a near organic growth of antennae and satellite dishes. It wasn't just solid enough to survive a nuclear war, but looked technologically equipped to control the central hub of all the worlds' communications. The building wasn't architecturally spectacular, but it was certainly an achievement.  
How the hell did Umbrella's bombers miss this damned great thing? "Friends." The voice, a breezy and confident one filled the courtyard; this was a man clearly not afraid of being heard. The man in question was advancing quickly across the courtyard to meet them, flanked by more armed goons with assault rifles. He was in his early fifties or so it appeared, greyish hair streaked his hair and temples and his skin was certainly tautened with wrinkles in certain areas, but he veritably glowed with inner fire. "Finally, you have come. I apologise for the...entourage" he waved at the soldiers who nudged Leon and Rebecca closer "But you know, risk and all that. It is a pleasure to see you again." "The pleasure's all ours" Leon said sarcastically. There was a slightly odd way the man had put his sentence however, and Rebecca was the first to notice it.  
"Sorry...again?" she said, narrowing her eyes "You're not another one of these crazy people who claim they've seen us before?"  
The man looked at them as if sympathising with them, and he nodded.  
"Ah yes, of course, you won't remember will you? Time will tell. Either way, you're here." He smiled broadly; it was much to their surprise, a genuine smile – not a false, cold one like the kind Wesker used to wear, Rebecca found herself thinking, but a bona fide warm smile of a man who was completely happy to see them. He reminded Leon of a benevolent Uncle he had once had.  
"It is time we showed you to your new home." The man said, "Follow me" He turned and briskly walked back in the direction he had come from. Leon and Rebecca stood there dumbly for a few moments before a pair of assault rifles nudged them back to reality.  
"Keep your hair on." Leon hissed, as he was frogmarched off with Rebecca beside him. "Hands where I can see 'em" the guard barked, gruffly. Under the watch of several assault rifles, they obeyed, albeit reluctantly. "What do you think will happen to us?" Rebecca said with a tinge of worry in her voice as they walked into the belly of the beast, metal gates sliding behind them with a crunch. "I don't know, but I'm not looking forward to it" Leon remarked, as they walked down the grey, dull corridor. They rounded several corners, went up a number of steep stairs, proceeded through a number of security checkpoints and reached a much larger white-and-grey area that looked brighter and less utility based. For some reason...this stung of familiarity. Except in the new image that was forming in his mind, it wasn't this lab.  
It was another one. Metal corridors, just like this one...a central computer column with a vast generator...retractable bridges...  
For a few moments he could see nothing but the lab of his dreams; a glimmering metal airlock opened before him, and he entered a de- contamination chamber. Fizzling in black and white, but recognisable. It looked typical of any laboratory, albeit a highly funded and tightly quarantined one...but Leon knew this place. Scientists, young and old, male and female bustled in and out of the lab area Leon could see through the crackling white fuzz of his delirious dream-world. That equipment...it looked...he knew he'd seen it before...  
Then colour and the real world again. He blinked in shock, finding himself walking down the main corridor again as he had before. Leon had been hallucinating again. "Leon..." Rebecca murmured "...I was...in a mansion...a lab of some kind...it was so familiar..."  
Not again. These flashes were becoming more regular and more frightening as they appeared. Leon wasn't certain that his mind was the place he wanted to be right now. Rebecca's own 'flashback' had been equally, if not more, affecting. Despite the monochrome of her surroundings, the place had clearly been a gothic mansion. It was very familiar to her...except it felt alive. There were people walking the hallways, nodding at...her?  
Was it a vision or was it a real memory? Leon too had been debating this. The two visions were less like images and more like experiences; but they were still in black and white. Something wasn't getting through correctly. He was pulled out of his thoughts by their arrival at their new home. The knot in Leon's stomach was tightening more than ever as they approached a thick metal door, securely bolted and locked. The man withdrew a card from his pocket, and slid it through the card reader beside the door. The red light above it blinked to green with a ping. The guards drew back the bolts, and Leon and Rebecca were pushed into the room.  
"Enjoy your stay. We will have another discussion in the morning!" the man said from the other side of the door, which was slammed behind them. Rebecca ran over to the door and banged her fist on it. "What the hell is going on?!" she yelled, pounding the metal angrily. "Enjoy" the man said again, before there was the sound of footsteps echoing off into the distance. "I can't believe this!" Rebecca spat "They chuck us in a cell, and-!" Leon had been staring around him the whole time, Rebecca still with her face to the door so she could not really see her new environs. "Um, Rebecca." "What?" "I don't think this is a cell" "What makes you think that?" "A few things really." "Like what?" "The TV's a good place to start. Oh, and the couch, portraits and sound system. Dead giveaway." Rebecca slowly turned around. And she gasped. What was around her was not the tawdry, dank prison cell she was expecting but...well...luxury. The room was vast, with other rooms leading off it. It was tastefully decorated; stylishly placed lights illuminated the scene with a pale yet friendly tint. Lush and possibly rare pot plants stood by large black speakers hooked up to the largest sound system she had ever seen. It probably didn't hold any less than one hundred and fifty CDs, she guessed and nearly correctly. The couch was vast and plush, the TV a rich-man's wet dream. Leon looked at his surroundings in utter incomprehension too. The piano in the corner of the adjacent room, he thought, couldn't have cost any less than two hundred thousand dollars, and the exercise bike near it was one that Leon had wanted to buy his parents for their anniversary, but couldn't because it would have taken three months wages just to foot the initial payments. It was ridiculous.  
"Rebecca, do my eyes deceive me..." he said, looking to his left "...but is that a bottle of champagne on chill?"  
Rebecca sidled up to the bottle in the ice bucket as if it was going to explode, and picked it up. It was ice cold, and dripped with condensation. Two glasses, crystalline and gleaming sat untouched by the bucket in its stand. "Yup."  
  
"Sure?" "Jacobs Creek, 1999. Good year too." "Right. We're surrounded by luxury and champagne on chill. We're also in the middle of an impregnable fortress protected by armed guards with T- Virus mutates just beyond the borders of the fence. This definitely makes sense."  
  
Leon flicked through the channels of the TV with the remote control, keen to find the end of the seemingly endless list of channels. A huge variation of pop culture flashed before him; game shows, soccer, golf, shopping, MTV, jackass, news, documentaries on whales... He shook his head and put the remote down as Rebecca re-entered the room.  
  
"Check it out Leon" Rebecca said, with a contained excitement "There's a minibar. Chock full with beer, wine and spirits."  
Leon nodded. "Good. I've been browsing our TV channels." "We get any good television?" "Oh, better than that" Leon said "We've got all the television. In the world. Ever. I've just been browsing through eighteen documentary channels, twenty-five news channels, thirty music channels and the lot."  
"Certainly provided for us haven't they?" Rebecca said, flopping down in the gigantic couch next to Leon with a sigh.  
"Yeah, yeah..." Leon said a little coolly.  
Rebecca looked at him.  
"Not enough sports channels?"  
"Rebecca, will you please take me seriously?" Leon snapped, spinning around to her "It's all very beautiful, but it's still a prison. We haven't exactly been given all the freedom we could possibly desire, Rebecca."  
He pointed towards the balcony, beyond which lay barbed wire and automated gun turrets, as well as armed guards some storeys below.  
"We're in the most beautiful gilded cage of all. We're guests but at the same time we're prisoners."  
"Which means..." Rebecca replied "...they want to keep us alive. They wouldn't go to all this trouble. Now, take this how you will Leon, but I haven't had a shower in forty-eight hours, neither have I changed clothes or eaten or drank. My only clothes are soaked..." she nodded to the wet bundle on the floor that consisted of the clothes they'd been wearing before and had carried with them "...and as far as I know, we have room service, a hot tub, fresh towels and a bottle of champagne waiting to be opened."  
She looked at him completely serious.  
"Or would you rather spend the rest of your time here dressed like a moron and smelling like a pig?" she said, viciously but not without a point.  
Leon had to concede this, but he wasn't going to give up without a fight. No sireee.  
"No way Rebecca. You can test me all you want, but I won't give in."  
  
"Look at it this way" Rebecca said, sipping the deliciously cold champagne from the cold glass as a thick lather of bubbles spluttered and popped beneath her swim-suited chest "You did manage to resist for a whole five seconds."  
Leon leaned back into the water, bare-chested and holding his own glass in his right hand. He wasn't sure he could bring himself to look at Rebecca for a little while. The hot tub was large, very hot and extremely comfortable. Much to Leon's annoyance, he had felt himself physically relaxing under the pounding ministrations of the tubs air-jets. Leon was directly opposite Rebecca, still having difficulty believing that two hours ago he'd been fighting for his life and now he was like the centre of attention at the playboy mansion. All very beautiful stuff, yes, and he'd enjoy it while he could...but he still kept a word of warning in his mind despite Rebecca's enthusiasm.  
Rebecca looked at Leon, and stretched her pale, glistening left arm.  
"Listen, I know we're prisoners and all that...but if you're given a loaf of bread, then you eat it, you know?"  
Leon looked into Rebecca's eyes, and saw nothing but honesty. Then he realised he was starting to look at something else other than her eyes and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. She was quite curvaceous, the part of his mind that was always keeping an eye out for potential girl-friend material told him, and she clearly enjoys your company...  
Shut the fuck up he told himself.  
Rebecca had been aware, and just about restrained her blush.  
"I guess you're right..." he sighed, "...I just don't trust them. You've seen the same kinds of vis-memories whatever, as me. They all know who we are. The lead scientist clearly knows us very well."  
  
Rebecca, despite her healthy looking sweat was looking unsettled by what Leon was saying.  
"You're right..." she said, looking down slightly guiltily "You're right...it's like there's an itch I just can't scratch, you know? These memories belong somewhere I just don't know where."  
Leon smiled at her, slightly contritely for having caused a guilt trip.  
"Hey, it's okay. We may as well enjoy a bit of luxury, huh?"  
Rebecca appeared hesitant, but then she smiled sweetly at him.  
"Yeah. Why not?" she replied. Leon took Rebecca's smile in. It reminded him of a girl he'd once know, the one he'd enjoyed an evening of passion with behind the gym at high school. Oh yeah, her. ........ Funny. Why couldn't he remember her name? 


	5. The first of many truths

He furrowed his brow. Her name. For some reason he couldn't remember. He'd remembered it a few days ago. It wasn't like the name of your first time was easy to forget, but for some reason his recall was drawing a blank. Come to think of it...  
He stood up out of the hot-tub, and pulled a towel on over the swim shorts they had provided for him.  
"Leon?" Rebecca asked, slightly confused at his surprise exit from the tub "What's wrong?"  
Leon stalked into the sitting room, and sat down heavily in the thick couch. He stared down at the priceless patterned Persian carpet and tried to think. Leon massaged his tired temples with his hand, in an attempt to inspire his synapses into life. He remembered...he remembered her face. That he could remember. But where he had formerly been able to attach a name, there was now nothing but a blank void. It was the day before he'd graduated, it couldn't be that difficult to remember. Come to think of it, what had he done post graduation? He thought. Nothing. Again, a blank void. Now Leon was really starting to sweat; first the name of his first time, and now there was an alarming four year gap he appeared to have forgotten. The next thing he could remember was starting his police training. But he hadn't started training until he was twenty-two. That was at least four years that he was drawing little more than a blank at. He was dimly aware Rebecca was standing beside him and talking to him.  
"Leon? Leon?" Leon turned to Rebecca.  
"Rebecca, what's the name of the first man you slept with?" Rebecca went deep red. To any person it may well have seemed like a pick- up line, seeing as both of them were dressed in little more than towels. Leon's eyes were serious however, and she replied. "I...didn't have a first time. I'm still a...virgin." She seemed very embarrassed by this point, something Leon understood. She was still only nineteen, not everybody was still a virgin by then. Then, more sympathetically he asked her  
"Okay. Um...how about your first kiss then?"  
Oh, that was easy, Rebecca thought. She searched her memories for the memory of that first sweet kiss at age fourteen, of the young man she'd been swept off her feet by. How could she forget him? She'd repeated his name every day for nearly a year after, it was an institution in her brain. His name. His name.  
Leon noticed the muscles in her face tensing.  
"Leon...I don't know." She replied, hopelessly as fear started to creep into her voice "I can't remember the name of my school either! I can't even remember what college I went to!"  
The panic rose in her voice as she exclaimed this, and Leon's was rising too. As he thought about it, his school name was also a mystery. Neither could he remember his first kiss. He knew it had happened, and had images...but not names. Come to think of it, even her face was becoming a bit of a mystery now. He strained and strained to picture her; sweat beaded on his forehead with the effort, but still to no avail.  
"I can't even remember what she looks like now." Leon whispered, clutching his agonised and severely messed up head in his hands. Rebecca sat down beside him, shaking her head in bewilderment; tears crept down from her eyes, and slid off her cheeks to stain the carpet dark with moisture.  
"What's happening to us?" she said, "What the hell is going on?"  
"Do you think I'd be sitting here if I knew?!" Leon snapped. He regretted it instantly, because Rebecca just seemed to get more upset. She was crying proper tears now; of what? Regret? Despair? He wasn't sure exactly. Leon was certain enough to put his arm around her and give her a half-hug.  
"Sorry about that..." he said, gently "...I just...lost it."  
She relaxed slightly, but didn't let go. If anything, she redoubled her grip on Leon's arm. For some reason he was a rock; a boon for her to cling to in the storm. Despite the fact he was just as scared as her, Leon made her...feel at home. More comfortable. What puzzled her was how deep-seated the emotion felt; it wasn't just camaraderie or the notion of trusting your partner with your life. It was a deep, spiritual bond that she was pretty sure Leon felt but which couldn't be made clear. "Why is my head going blank?" Leon said, deep in confusion "I don't get it."  
  
"Well then," Rebecca said, standing up. She decided maybe it was her turn to be the strong one; she pulled the last strands of her courage together "We'd better ask them."  
"When?"  
"Tomorrow. I doubt they'd let us out before the day was through." Leon nodded.  
"Good idea. So what do we do now?"  
There was silence as they considered this.  
"I don't know about you..." Rebecca said, rubbing her snarling stomach "...but I'm absolutely goddamn starving."  
Leon nodded vehemently; he hadn't eaten since sometime the previous afternoon and his stomach was getting angry. As he considered this, he actually felt his mood mildly improving despite his mental state.  
"No kidding. There a fridge around here?"  
"Um..." She scanned the room, and then walked into the next room. Leon explored the other room linking from the other direction. After a search through their fairly luxurious apartment Leon turned up three different games consoles and a ping-pong table but nothing that could be said to contain food.  
"Ah, maybe they want us to starve to death" Leon said.  
"Hmm..." Rebecca spied a phone on the wall "I wonder?" The food arrived maybe fifteen minutes after the phone call. Leon stared down at the plate of the best cooked southern-fried chicken he'd ever seen, accompanied by an immaculate salad, baked beans and a bottle of ice cold beer he'd raided from the minibar. Rebecca was already tucking into her meal, a chilli con-carne that steamed on top of fluffy white rice.  
"We may be their prisoners..." Leon said, taking a bite of the chicken "...but man, they know how to look after them."  
  
The sleeping arrangements proved to be interesting. There was only the one bed. It was large, yes, and it was luxuriously comfortable. It was silky white and red and seemed to take up at least half the room. "Wow" Rebecca exclaimed, bouncing experimentally on the bed "It's really comfortable."  
"Yeah..." Leon said, uncomfortably "...but it's only the one bed."  
"Don't be a baby" Rebecca said, "Don't worry, I won't bite."  
Leon felt Rebecca was missing the point.  
"Rebecca. It's one bed. We have to share it" he persisted.  
For a moment Rebecca didn't get it; then all of a sudden she did. Her face flushed red with embarrassment; the third time in nearly an hour. What's wrong with me? She thought, she was more like a little girl than a biochemist and medic. She did those jobs well, she thought, but Rebecca hadn't seen an incident that required medical care just yet. "Well, it's simple." She said, matter of factly after her momentary lapse "I take one side, and you take another. Makes sense." Leon looked at the bed for another few moments, and then nodded, his fears of inappropriate goings-on allayed for the time being. Leon yawned. He'd been on the god for hours, and he didn't count his unconscious ride in the belly of the cargo plane as much of a rest. But boy was he tired. "Dunno about you" he said, suppressing a second yawn "But I think I'm going to bed right now." He walked into the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom, and closed the door. Rebecca stared after him. Well, that awkward situation had been dealt with. As if, she thought scoffing at herself, I'd sleep with Leon! It'd be a cold day in hell before that happens!  
For ten minutes, Rebecca found herself wondering when the next cold day in Satan's domain would occur.  
  
Leon's dream was not a dream. It was a memory; the most vivid of all he'd seen so far. It was longer, clearer and more comprehensible but no less mysterious. Yes, it was still in a kind of fizzing, crackling style but it was less fragmentary than before. He appeared to be in a small room, an office of some description. Seated at what seemed to be a mahogany desk sat a fairly porky man who was eyeing him with a look of distrust, or maybe even unease. The carpet was thick and expensive, but the room was utilitarian; stationery perfectly arranged on the desk, a calendar, a company logo that Leon....couldn't...quite...see...  
"Are you sure this is the right approach?" the man said, in the kind of a voice a man who only ever worked in an office environment would use.  
"Of course" he heard his own voice say. Leon was shocked. It was his voice all right, but it was being used in a snide, cold way he'd never use in normal conversation.  
His voice then continued in that same way, the same smugly self- satisfied tone that gave him the shivers.  
"It's quite simple. I will contact Birkin and we will meet. I will then look around to familiarise myself with the facility. Then I decamp to Raccoon City with Rebecca, is that too much to ask?"  
The man's face creased with anger.  
"Don't get arrogant with me Leon, or I'll charge you with rank insubordination." Leon felt himself stand up. "Whatever. Just do it, please." Leon was shocked. He would never speak to anybody like that; surely this couldn't be him? As he left the room into an empty metal corridor, he saw somebody approach. It was Rebecca. Slightly younger, but not by much.  
"Heya baby" she purred seductively, kissing him.  
"Hey" he replied, with equal passion.  
Rebecca looked at him. She too didn't look as he knew her. Her eyes had no sparkle as they did normally, but they did have an uncomfortable glow matched with a smug smile that gave Leon the creeps.  
"So you're definitely going to the city lab?"  
He nodded.  
"Yeah. Fatman just authorised it."  
For a moment, Rebecca looked coy. "It's a pity you're not coming to Arklay with me; we could have so much fun..." A hand on his cheek. Not Rebecca behaviour at all; Rebecca was fairly tomboyish, and when she wasn't she was certainly more restrained than this.  
"No can do sweet-lips, got a job to do." Rebecca laughed, a sound that was a perversion of what Rebecca's laughs really sounded like, and began to walk with him down the corridor.  
"You meeting with Dr. Bell?" Leon asked.  
"Yep. He was worried progress might not be made by the time I got there. Let's just say I gave them motivation."  
  
A shared laugh, neither the warm sound either made.  
Arklay...? Birkin...? Sweetlips...? Then Leon was awake all of a sudden, bolt upright and panting like a dog. There was a long drawn-out silence as Leon began to breathe normally again. He was back in the 'cell', the room flooding with morning light. Leon groaned and stretched, turning to the wall clock to read the time. Eleven- fifty-two. He flopped back into the sheets, his mind flowing like a stream; these weird lapses were getting more and more regular as time went on, not to mention more vivid. It was now past strange. It had been way past strange after the last time, but now it was frightening. Leon did not consciously remember any of what he was remembering. The little girl. The lab walk. And now this. Rebecca was definitely in this one now; what strange, secretive past or bizarre episode in his past or somebody else's they had been involved they had been involved in it together.  
  
"How was the trip?" Leon asked, as Rebecca sat down beside him in the waiting lounge; the white-Umbrella logo was emblazoned in vast reds and whites and the piercing sword on the wall opposite them.  
"Fine." She replied, "All set."  
"Think it'll work?" he asked her.  
"I see no reason why" she said, with a shrug "They don't know. Give it six months and I think we'll actually be able to put the plan into action."  
  
"Six months? I thought you said all set?"  
"For phase one, yeah." Leon looked Rebecca in the eyes, all of the sounds of the workplace drowned around her. "By the way, they want us back home. Say its an emergency or something." "Dean probably got his pants in a twist again" Rebecca replied bitterly "Hell, when do we go?"  
"Tomorrow. First plane out to Sydney." Rebecca felt Leon leaning closer on the couch; every sensation felt real and every sound hit a nerve.  
"Don't I get a kiss for a good weeks work done?" he asked, smirking lustily.  
Rebecca heard her own voice.  
"Oh, you'll get more than that baby..." With a gasp of surprise, Rebecca woke up. Her eyes flew open wide, eyes darted around the room for signs of that logo. No, it wasn't here; Rebecca felt herself relax slightly as reality registered itself around her. That had been an uncomfortable dream...oh who was she kidding, it felt too real to be a self-induced hallucination. It could be a very convincing fantasy, but it didn't' feel like any fantasy she would ever have. The Umbrella logo and the way her and Leon and her had conversed had unsettled her, badly. The surviving STARS and those associated with them had resolved to bring them down, and Rebecca had no intention of flinching from that. "Bad dream, huh?" Leon said, sitting down beside her. His expression was expectant yet sympathetic. Rebecca exhaled, and nodded. She pulled herself up into an upright position, and rested her neck against the vast headboard. "Yep. More vivid this time." Leon turned away. "Mine too." "What was yours about?" Rebecca asked. "Me and you. We were about to go on a 'mission'" Rebecca would have reacted with surprise, but somehow it seemed pointless reacting like that anymore. She knew there was a connection although she wasn't sure what it was; a conversation with their resident scientist would probably put paid to that. It was time, she thought, her heart pounding in her chest, to finally discover the truth.  
"In mine, we'd just come back from the mission" she replied eventually.  
"Anything creep you out about the way we acted in it? Like...really cold?"  
"Uh-huh" she nodded in the positive, "It's becoming too real now."  
"Why do I get the impression it always has been...?" Leon mused half to himself. Rebecca picked up on it, however.  
"You're not the only one who thinks that; I'm not comfortable with anything I do remember from when I was a kid now." Leon shook his head, sick and tired of his memory.  
"I'm sick of this. I'm starting to doubt who I am, I've never done that before. There's a hole there and I don't know what to do about it. I need answers before I go crazy, god knows anybody in this mental state would. How can I be sure I am who I think I am?"  
"Well..." Rebecca wasn't sure how to answer. Leon turned to her, eyes tightly determined.  
"We're going to see that guy now."  
  
The soldiers dressed in black walked behind them, although these ones felt confident enough to go without helmets. They were lean, cold and lacking in social graces. Their limited vocabulary towards guests/prisoners was limited to 'Get up' 'Now' and 'Move', all of which they had grunted from beneath cruel eyes and had backed up with black rifles. Tranquilliser or otherwise, Leon couldn't guess. The corridor was wide, grey and lit with pale strip lights despite the fact it was supposedly almost midday. No windows, Leon noted, as his and Rebecca's boots squeaked on the squeaky clean linoleum which reflected the only light up from the immaculate floor. They both had questions to ask, and a lot of them. Some of these included why their memories were as patchy as they were, what these new memories meant, why they were being kept in the lap of luxury and who their hosts were in the first place. If they wanted to stand a chance of actually finding out at all, they'd have to be good. Which was why they walked ahead of the guards with no fuss at all. They even left them behind at certain points, then waited for their escort to catch up. The guards directed them down yet another corridor and then ordered them to take a sharp left through a pair of glass doors. The room they stepped into was alive with the thrum of machines and computers, the already bright room lit further by bank after bank of glowing monitors and consoles. Several vast machines, each a bizarre science-fiction orgasm from somebody whose favourite films were Blade Runner and The Matrix stood at the end of the room next to vast viewing windows. Two doors led off from either side of the room, which was only about half full. Leon felt his eyes widen; about fifteen or so scientists were standing around making notes, and nearly forty odd technicians were seated at their computers, headphones blotting out the normal world around them. It was not quiet however, several staff members stood around talking about work, some others a little more relaxed and were sharing jokes or bizarre stories. At the front of the room were three figures, each one expectant. The first was the man who had brought them to their quarters the night before. The second was an attractive forty-something lady of Chinese origin who appeared somewhat more kindly than the man, a gentle glow settling across her mature but beautiful Asian face as Leon and Rebecca walked through the door. The third figure was the youngest by quite some distance. She was uniformed as a technician, and much like the older figure seemed to have Chinese origin, although she seemed to have western blood judging by the difference between the two. This one was about eighteen or so, Leon reckoned, and every pretty too. While the older woman had a gentle glow, the young woman was like a sun at the zenith of its strength.  
"Ah" the man smiled as the two approached him "Welcome. I trust you both slept well?"  
The women were looking at Leon and Rebecca very intently, something Leon seemed aware of as he replied.  
"Yeah. Like a top."  
"Judging by the frantic phone-call Rebecca made this morning, I'm under the impression that you want answers?"  
Rebecca's phone-call had maybe been more enthusiastic and passionate than it had needed to be, but that didn't matter. It had had the desired effect.  
"It is only natural you would want answers" the man said "And I shall give you the answers that you desire. It is time you knew anyway. Please follow us into my office."  
The women smiled and nodded at Leon and Rebecca, who followed the three of them into one of the side doors. The office was large and much like their apartment, very luxurious. There were potted palms across what seemed to be a marble floor and fully stocked shelves, full of books, trophies and photographs of a long gone age. The man took a seat in his enormous desk chair; clearly no expense was spared here despite the bombings and the mayhem beyond the fences.  
Rebecca finally spoke up, refusing to stay mute for much longer.  
"Look" she said impatiently "We're having real memory problems right now, and we know that you all know what it is we actually need to know. So come on!"  
The man raised his hands.  
"We will be getting to that promptly. First I want to introduce us. I am Dr. Peterson, head of operations and lead scientist here in the Proteus Labs. To my left..." he indicated to his left "...is Dr. Mei Wong. She has been working under me for nearly twenty years and is very trustworthy. You will not find a better person than her on my staff."  
He smiled at her, and then pointed to the youngest of the three. "This is her daughter; Mia Wong. She is a technician here, and specifically requested to speak to you." He rolled his eyes as Mia blushed "She sort of idolizes you."  
Leon and Rebecca exchanged blank looks.  
"Okay, Dr. Peterson." Leon said, patience beginning to fray "Can you tell us what's going on? Why are our memories all messed around, why can't I remember my first girlfriend, why can everybody else here remember us and why are you intent on keeping us happy?"  
"One question at a time" Peterson replied, "But I will give you the most difficult news first."  
There was a pregnant pause as Peterson stood up slowly. He was preparing to say something, judging by his exhalations and bunching of his knuckles. Then he looked directly at them, eyes darkly serious. What he said changed their lives irrevocably.  
"The truth is that you are not who you think you are. You are not the real Leon S. Kennedy, Leon, and neither are you the real Rebecca Chambers, Rebecca. The original Leon Kennedy and Rebecca Chambers died twenty-five years ago in a car crash." 


	6. For we are many

A horrible pause. A horrible, horrible, horrible pause. The words of Dr. Peterson echoed in Leon's mind as if somebody had just pelted a grenade deep into his conscience. The real Leon Kennedy isn't me...? He looked at Rebecca, who was also assimilating the information. Like him, her face was trying to show several emotions at once; anger, frustration, disappointment, shock, despair and betrayal. He could feel the blood pounding through his body at an incredible rate as his heart tried not to overload to the shock that resonated through his very soul. No, it couldn't be. It had to be a trick, a trick played by Umbrella to confuse them and lead them up the garden path. But something deep inside Leon spoke cold words of truth. He knew that the Doctor was right. The itch he had been trying to scratch had been scratched, and Leon's head was trying to make excuses.  
Rebecca too was finding it impossible to understand. Some inner part of her soul told her the scientist was correct, and the realization of that was sending further shockwaves through Rebecca. Her stomach churned at his words, determined not to believe the truth; but somehow she knew it was true.  
"Then..." Rebecca saw Leon croak, "...Who are we...?"  
Peterson sighed.  
"You are advanced Tenth generation clones of the original templates; you are one of ten clones created using Leon Kennedy and Rebecca Chamber's DNA. The reason for you fragmented memory is because the memory suppressant, a combination of gene and hypnotherapy started to dysfunction when you came within proximity of your original home. This place seems familiar to you does it not?"  
No answer, just a pair of hopeless, defeated nods.  
"That is because you lived here before; it's also where you were born, some twenty-three years ago. The Rebecca's were always cloned after the Leon's, because the Rebecca's were created to compliment the Leon's and learn from them. The boys were talented and learned skills very well, but the Rebecca's were quicker learners."  
"Clones...?" Rebecca asked quietly "...Us?"  
"I'm afraid so." Peterson replied as gently as he could seemingly manage "But don't be too downhearted. You came home. Soon we can remove the hormone inhibitor and you can retain your former abilities; of course we had to restrict them when we sent you out into the big old wide world, doesn't take long for genetics companies to recognise super soldiers when they see them."  
  
Super soldiers?  
"You created us?" Leon said, voice dry as a bone "From scratch? You mean..." there was a pause, as Leon struggled to get the words out of a dry, suffocated throat "...I don't have...any...parents?"  
"Of course you do" Peterson said "All of us. The Proteus team who cultivated and nurtured you from the moment we conceived you. You were trained with absolute precision from the moment of your birth to fulfil that role."  
"That kind of cloning technology wasn't around that amount of time ago" Rebecca spat, trying to fight back.  
"Oh, yes it was." Peterson replied, "Well, we could do it at least. Some of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century conspired to develop the technology. It was expensive of course, but the sales of pharmaceuticals that Umbrella, who were our employers at the time more than made up the losses we made. Viral research isn't cheap, neither was ours. Which was why they cut off our funding ten years ago. It was a highly complex process, but we were able to do it. Took a good number of false starts, and we were unable to make you older more quickly as we wanted; we had to settle for allowing you to age naturally."  
Leon was staring off into space, still gutted by the doctor's revelation. He wasn't Leon S. Kennedy. He was somebody else; a cheap imitation of another person who had borne the name he thought he had had since birth. They were still calling him Leon, but..."  
"What's my real name then?" Leon asked, only just listening to Peterson's spiel about how the viral research had led to them being able to create a spermatazoan or an egg out of the same genetic material the individual consisted of, thus replicating their genetic predispositions without the seed being 'diluted', or some such rot. Leon didn't understand it or the science of it, and wouldn't even pretend to understand.  
Peterson turned to him.  
"Your name is Leon. Leon Ten."  
"Which means that..." Rebecca began "...that you are Rebecca Ten, yes." Leon's name echoed through his head. Leon Ten. Leon Ten. Leon TEN. LEON TEN?!  
"You mean..." Leon said, his anger rising quickly with every word "...You didn't even give me a proper name?! A fucking number?!!!"  
He almost screamed the last three words he was so angry, his face was red with fury and hatred. Rebecca grabbed onto Leon, and looked at Dr. Peterson with abject loathing and disgust. Her face was red too, tears were flowing freely from her eyes as she fixed her gaze on Peterson.  
"That's all we were to you, wasn't it?" she shouted, voice soaked in venom "A pair of fucking numbers! Soldiers?! Assassins?! You fucking..."  
"Please," Dr. Peterson raised his hands again "I understand you're both upset..."  
Neither Rebecca nor Leon felt that even warranted a reply. Upset barely hit the heights to which the pair had been sent; it barely covered the anguish and despair that flowed through them both like a river.  
"How do we know we can believe you?" Rebecca said, through her tears "How do we know you're not just lying to us?"  
"Ah, you want proof." He smiled "I think I know just the man. Mei, would you please call them in?"  
Mei Wong nodded, and looking apologetically at Leon and Rebecca she called out  
"Leon, Rebecca...please come in!" The door behind them opened. "Well, well" a male voice said "This is what I call a blast from the past" Leon froze at the sound of a voice that was word for word like his. He hadn't had many moments like this; one of them was probably when Annette Birkin had first told him that Ada was a spy back in Raccoon some months ago. It was that unusual feeling of dread, a knowledge that the inevitable was about to happen.  
Leon didn't dare turn around, but then again he didn't need to. The two figures walked around them and took a bemused pose two feet from them. Rebecca, despite her tears and terror of knowing that Dr. Peterson was right, felt her jaw drop open. The girl opposite her was about her age and dressed in the black combat suits all of the soldiers possessed. This girl was wearing the smile of somebody who'd just seen the most bizarre creature in the zoo and was enjoying watching it throw its faeces at her against the window. The girl was in fact identical in every single respect to Rebecca Chambers. The nose, the hair, the eyes, structure of the cheeks, the petite frame...it was her.  
"It's me," the other Rebecca said in the same voice, albeit with a breezier confidence in it, and cocked her head on one side "Only cuter."  
Leon found himself staring into a pair of eyes whose genetic code was exactly the same as his. The same intense blue, the same brown bangs of his hair. It was him alright. The other Leon took a step back so Leon could get a full look at the man. This Leon was, as with the other Rebecca, identical to him.  
"It's been a while since we saw you guys around" the other Leon said, "We've missed you, you know."  
  
"Who...are you?" Leon managed through a bone-dry throat.  
"I'm your older clone, or brother as I prefer to say. I am only two years older than you; that's because I'm number eight."  
"Number eight?" Rebecca asked.  
"Yep" Rebecca Eight said cheerily "We're generation eight clones. We are the only four remaining clones out of twenty."  
"They...dead or something?" Leon said.  
At this point, Mei Wong and her daughter stepped up.  
"I think the time for knowing those facts is yet to come. Leon and Rebecca Ten have to adjust; their memories still haven't fully returned yet." The older woman said matter of factly.  
Mia Wong turned to her mother, bursting with energy.  
"Can I escort them to the lab mother?"  
Mei turned to her daughter.  
"All in good time Mia, you'll get to talk to Leon later, okay?" Mia was blushing the colour of cherries, but Leon barely noticed her. He was still emaciated, baffled, shocked and betrayed. All he could think about was truth about who he was. A truth that shouldn't have been.  
He felt somebody touch his hand. It was Mei, looking at him with concern in her eyes.  
"Are you okay Leon?"  
Leon looked at her as if she'd just asked him if he was male.  
"No..." he said, slowly as emotion boiled up in his voice "...I'm far from 'okay'. My parents don't exist, my past is a lie, I'm a copy of somebody else, I've probably killed more people than Charles Manson for all I know; that kind of information puts a real fucking downer on your life!!!"  
He turned away from Leon Eight and stormed out of the office, not looking back as the tears started to flow freely. The door opened behind him, and he spun around to see who was following him. It was Rebecca. She looked like a puppet with the strings cut, her face red and stained with countless tears from her weeping. She walked slowly towards him...before falling into his arms, her crying beginning again as she pressed her face against his chest and screamed in misery into the fabric. The muffled noise made Leon want to scream too, but as he put his arms around her, he realised he couldn't. The spiritual bond, whether it be love or just plain friendship, did exist. It ran so deep, that in a way she was the only thing that meant anything to him right now. Rebecca made sense to Leon; she was the only thing to him that did.  
As Rebecca wept her rage away, she felt Leon's arms tighten around her. As his grip tightened, she felt an odd calmness overtake her. Her and Leon had lived together their entire lives without knowing it, and right now he was the person she wanted to be with. If not romantically, then just to hold her and tell her everything was okay. Leon couldn't tell her everything was okay because everything was not okay.  
He felt a hand tentatively touch his arm. Through his mask of tears, Leon saw Mei Wong looking at him sympathetically; her cool brown eyes calmed him, loosening for the time being the tightened sensation he felt around his throat.  
"Come with us to the examination room." She said, gently "We can sort a few things out. Dr. Peterson isn't really the best person to ask moral questions."  
"I'll bet" Leon muttered, looking over her shoulder back into Peterson's office. The man stood there, a thing smile spread over his lips. Leon didn't care what the consequences would be, but he swore that he would kill Dr. Peterson.  
  
Mia withdrew the needle and daubed Leon's jab with cotton wool to absorb the minute amount of blood the tiny wound was producing. She smiled and indicated the cotton wool, which Leon held down compliantly. As she turned to dispose of the needle in a medical waste pedal-bin and then proceed to wash her hands, she asked softly  
"How are you feeling?" Her English was crisp, her accent American  
"I've..." Leon's throat was still dry out of shock of the revelations he'd heard today "...felt better."  
"That's only natural." Mia replied, still softly "It's not every day somebody finds out what you found out."  
"No kidding." Leon said, looking around the examination room. It was clinically white and sterile, and he and Mia were alone in the room. Mei had escorted Rebecca to the ward just off this area of the medical wing so that she could get some rest from the shock. That had left jus the pair of them. Mia had given Leon two injections, one that she said would restore his memories quickly and easily, the other that she had just given was one that she described simply as the 'un-inhibitor'. He felt himself tingle as the injection kicked in.  
"You're only human." She said, turning to him with a sunbeam bright smile "To be human is to learn about oneself."  
Leon stared at the tiled floor, watching his toes swing back and forth.  
"What will I find," Leon said, "if I look inside? Will I be scared by what I see?"  
She shrugged.  
"You might be. You can't really prepare yourself for finding out things like that."  
Leon nodded, and continued to look down.  
"I remember" Leon said, quietly "My seventh birthday. Nobody seemed to know. I was so excited too; Rebecca was really young, and she said happy birthday. I ran around the lab, telling everybody it was my birthday. They ignored me. All too busy, they said. I ended up crying under somebody's desk I was so upset; then a woman came along...can't picture her face yet...but she gave me a cake with a candle in it and said 'happy birthday'. I hugged her like she was my mom. I probably thought she was my mom. She promised that she'd make me a special dinner that night as a treat; I remember crying for joy. She was..." he looked up, tears settling in his eyes "...the only one who ever really gave a damn about me as a kid. Everybody else wanted to get me 'educated', and train me in all those martial arts. I remember that much."  
Mei smiled, and gently placed a hand on Leon's.  
"It's good that you've started remembering."  
Leon looked into her bright eyes.  
"I'm not sure it is. When I start remembering more about my adult life – will I be able to cope with the knowledge?"  
"Of what?"  
"The people. All the men and women I've killed."  
"My mother said you were very honourable; you never killed any women or children because you didn't believe it was right."  
"I still killed people, Mia" Leon sighed, "I may not remember that, but I do. In what I thought was my real life, I joined the police to protect people. To protect and to serve. Now it turns out, well, that I was a professional killer."  
The words sounded awful in his mind; the very concept of killing people as part of a profession nauseated Leon to his very soul. They fascinated him in genre fiction, and John Woo almost turned them into artistes. But to have blood on your hands and not being able to see the blood...Leon couldn't bear the thought of that. Yet here he was with that blood on his hands.  
Very honourable? Leon couldn't understand people applying the idea of honour to contract killing.  
"You weren't just sent out to kill people you know" Mia added, brightly "You were sent out on information retrieval missions too!"  
Leon looked at Mia aghast. Was this girl for real? She was treating a very serious subject with something approaching chirpiness, as if she was talking to a celebrity about their work.  
"Mia, you haven't ever killed anyone, have you?"  
Mia looked sheepish for a moment, then replied  
"No...I guess not."  
"Exactly. So don't make it sound as if it's the greatest thing ever, because it ain't. The only reason I still sleep at night about all those zombies I gunned down in Raccoon City is because they weren't human anymore, neither human nor animal. Just walking carcasses. Killing them was a mercy; they'd have wanted it that way. I've been told of people in Raccoon who were turning into zombies and they were pleading and begging their friends to kill them before they turned into the walking dead."  
Mia watched him, listening intently. Her expression was not unlike admiration.  
"So deep. You always were very deep Leon. You were always so...thoughtful."  
The image being painted was a bizarre one. Leon decided not to think about it for a short while. At this point, Mei chose to walk in from the ward, the shutter doors swinging closed behind her with a rubbery swish.  
"She's napping" Mei said, "I think it's best we let her be for a while."  
"Sounds like a good idea." Leon said. Mei put her head on one side.  
"I know it's difficult coming to terms with this kind of thing." She said, gently "At the moment you're probably deciding how much of your life is real and how much isn't; that answer will come to you in time. For now, I'd try to take it easy."  
Leon shook his head, his soul agonising in the acid bath of his memory.  
"I can't just take it easy...it's an impossibility. I've learned something about myself, and I don't like it."  
Mei knelt down, and looked up at Leon, catching his eye with a cool oriental stare.  
"Leon, we all have to confront the truth at some point in our lives. For some people those truths just happen to be bigger than others."  
Leon gave her an acidic look, and then he stood up.  
"Where are you going?" Mia asked, concerned.  
"I'm going to see Rebecca if that's okay." Leon said flatly "I need to see someone who understands me."  
He left the room without giving either Mei or Mia a look, and proceeded through the double doors. The room was vast and white, and beds lined either side of the room in enormous quantities. Only one was occupied. Rebecca was propped up against a pillow, her eyes red-rimmed and her face drained. Leon approached, although at first she didn't appear to notice him. He sat down beside her, the bed creaking under the extra weight. Rebecca then turned to face him.  
"Who are we, Leon?" she whispered, "Who are we?"  
Leon hung his head.  
"I don't know..." he said hopelessly. He felt her hand rest on his own clasped hands, and reflexively he curled one hand around hers. It was warm and soft, and he clung on tightly.  
"Maybe we...can help each other on that point..." she whispered. He looked up, to see Rebecca smiling softly at him. She was surprisingly beautiful, he found himself thinking, and almost blushed. He pulled her into a deep hug, Rebecca clinging onto him tightly.  
"Promise you won't leave" she said, quietly.  
"I promise." he whispered in her ear, and on impulse lightly kissed her cheek. Rebecca felt herself flushing at this; calm down, she thought, he's not yours to have. No, she told herself firmly, he isn't. Then, a little voice in her head said something that increased the pace of her heartbeat.  
Isn't he? Now Rebecca thought about it, since when did Claire have Leon? She didn't, Rebecca realised. Her hands tightened around Leon's waist. Before it hadn't been so complicated; her and Leon had been good friends, nothing more. But in the space of a day things had changed so irrevocably, that Rebecca was finding it difficult to work out what was true and what was not. What was true, she realised, was that Leon was becoming an increasing point of attraction for her. She had tried to resist what was naturally coming to her; but why shouldn't she give in? Her and Leon had a bond. More memories, those of her and Leon playing as children, Leon looking after her when she was sad or distressed had come to her. Rebecca felt that she owed him far more than she'd initially thought she had. They had spent much of their lives together. In a way, she had had first dibs on Leon.  
She was broken out of her thought by the sound of footsteps behind her. Leon released his grip on her, somewhat to her reluctance, and they turned to look at Leon and Rebecca Eight standing over them.  
"What are you doing here?" Leon asked, a little irritably.  
"We just came to see how you were doing." Leon Eight said smoothly, leaning on one foot.  
"As well as can be expected." Rebecca replied flatly.  
Rebecca Eight contrived to look a little offended.  
"That's not nice." She said "We were only concerned for our little brother and sister."  
Leon and Rebecca exchanged a brief glance.  
"Are we the only ones left?" Leon asked. Leon Eight raised an eyebrow.  
"Technically, yes."  
"What do you mean 'technically'?"  
"The others are around, if not exactly talkative."  
"Where are they?" Rebecca asked.  
Rebecca Eight turned to look at Leon Eight, then turned back.  
"Want to see them?"  
  
The air was developing a chill, the usually blue sky diffused with grey clouds that threatened a spitting rainstorm at any moment. They were out the back of the massive fortress, amongst the grasslands that lay there as if they were the grounds of some enormous mansion house. It was alarmingly like the Spencer estate, Rebecca thought with a shudder. Leon and Rebecca followed their older clones down the path, past clumps of thick grass and over muddy ground, passing trees that were thick with greenery, waving in the wind. They walked virtually in silence, the sounds of the wind creating a gentle moan that gave both Leon and Rebecca the shivers. Leon and Rebecca Eight didn't seem bothered by it. Soon they came to a stop. Leon Eight turned around. "Welcome to the Kennedy-Chambers cemetery. Every individual who shared our genetic codes lies here in their own individual plot. It might seem a bit creepy, but you do get used to it."  
"This is going to be really strange" Leon whispered in Rebecca's ear.  
Rebecca nodded in agreement.  
"I know." They walked up to a pair of wrought iron gates, with a similarly produced fence spreading off from left and right of them. Rebecca Eight raised the bolt, and pushed the left gate open with a squeak of un-oiled metal. She held the gate open, and Leon Eight walked through first. She beckoned for Leon and Rebecca, who stood doubtfully for a few moments before walking through the open gate.  
Rebecca gasped. Leon felt himself taking a breath as he gazed around. The lawn was well tended, if a little sporadically bushy in parts, but the green grass was quite occupied. Sixteen graves, each with an elaborate and baroque looking headstone lined the central path through the cemetery; they were made out of greyish, black and white marble, each slightly different and all with a fresh bunch of flowers on their plots.  
"My god..." Rebecca said, "I can't believe this...!"  
"All of them? Those are our clones?" Leon asked, facing Leon Eight. Leon Eight turned back to him, face stern.  
"I prefer 'brothers and sisters', if it's all the same to you." Leon felt embarrassed. Rebecca jogged over to some of the graves on the right hand side. She knelt by the gold-leaf inscription on one of them. It read: Rebecca Chambers No.3, born 1970, died 1990. Rest in peace, may god keep you. It gave her a shiver; beneath her knees was a girl who had been exactly like her, and she'd died eight years ago.  
"Rebecca Number three..." she ambled over to the next "Rebecca number four died in 1992! Jesus..."  
"They died young." Rebecca Eight said, a little sadly "A somewhat unfortunate combination of genetic issues or death in the line of duty, mostly the latter."  
"Genetic issues?" Rebecca asked, looking at her older 'sister' with a visible frown.  
"Some of the earlier clones were a little crude...they suffered disorders, that kind of thing." Rebecca Eight said conversationally. Leon shook his head, and found himself staring down at one that had a small marble cherub perched on top. Leon Kennedy No. Five, born 1972 in the love of Christ and died 1994, may god rest his soul. It was odd, he thought, to see so many relatives in one place.  
"They all died?" Leon asked, turning around to see his older-self looking at the grave.  
"Our line of work was hardly safe." Leon Eight explained, brushing away the dark brown bangs that Leon felt defined his hair "It was dangerous. It's lucky we found you in time, really." Leon found himself drawn to a very small grave to the left of the one he had been looking at. In fact, as Leon looked, it was only just visible. The gravestone appeared poorly tended to, and instead of a list of commiserations like 'lies in the care of god the father almighty', had only a name and his birth and death date. Leon Number Six. It was slightly overgrown, and Leon had to pull aside the fronds to allow him to see the name.  
"Why's this one so small?" Leon asked.  
"Well..." Leon Eight appeared uncomfortable "Leon Six, let us say, was the kind of guy you wanted to forget."  
Leon looked at the grave. Something about it unsettled him. Not because of what his older clone had just said particularly, though it was intriguing. It was the way it seemed so uncommemorative, so ignored. Almost as if...it was deliberately like that. As if somebody didn't want anybody to pay attention to it. Not in the sense that the man had maybe committed heinous crimes, but in that-  
"What's that?" he heard Rebecca ask. Leon stood up, his thoughts scattering like leaves. He noticed and only for the first time that a mausoleum stood like a miniature Greek temple at the end of the pathway. It was elaborate, and looked extremely expensive. It was made out of polished white marble, and managed to look like a Classic Greek version of the Lincoln Memorial. He and Rebecca stood side-by- side and gazed up at the Mausoleum's main inscription.  
  
HERE LIES LEON S. KENNEDY, 1951-1973, REBECCA CHAMBERS, 1953-1973  
  
"Are they...?" Leon began. "Yep." Leon Eight said, stepping forwards "The originals. They died half way through the first generation of clones. They were incredibly precocious, as you may have gathered by their ages. Child geniuses. Employed by the age of thirteen they were so scholastically advanced. Incredible individuals."  
Leon looked at Leon Eight, whose expression was admiration bordering on hero –worship. The originals had been Umbrella scientists, a company Leon treated with more than a little disdain.  
"Come on, let's meet them." Leon Eight said, gesturing with his right hand for the youngest generation to follow him and Rebecca Eight, who gave them a meaningful look. They followed, struck dumb. Leon and Rebecca stepped up the terrace of steps and to the main doors of the mausoleum. Rebecca Eight handed Leon Eight a key, which he slotted into a small hole by the doors, and twisted it. With a shudder, the stone doors creaked open. Inside, it was surprisingly bright. The room was large, white and airy and in the middle were laid two vast sarcophagi, both lined with a greyish metal and each possessing a huge amount of ornamentation. Inscriptions on the walls proclaimed their achievements and virtues; Rebecca recalled similar kinds of promotion on the tombs of the Romans, which she recalled her dry and dusty history teacher whom she had largely ignored had called euergesia. To promote the virtues of an individual. Well, that was what this tomb was all about. Leon Eight and Rebecca Eight's boots clicked across the marble as they wandered over to the two enormous stone caskets. Leon couldn't help but notice an enormous pile of flowers that lay beside both of them – it was like a hero shrine.  
"This is where they stay, preserved in chemicals and kept in glass coffins that were built into these damned great stone things." Rebecca Eight said, with a smile "These are your parents. In a manner of speaking."  
Leon and Rebecca approached the first. It was Rebeccas. Leon ran a hand over the smooth marble of the lid, and Rebecca stared down at the vast casket. The woman from whom she had originated; if she had not been born by her, it was damn close.  
"Mom." She found herself saying. Leon grasped her hand.  
"It's okay" Leon said, gently.  
Rebecca turned to him. "Your dad. My mom. They died together..." She held onto Leon's arm. "And here they are." Leon walked over to the other sarcophagus. He stared long at the lid, Rebecca squeezing his hand. "My father." He eventually said "My real one. Who is the man I spoke to all those months ago. Who was he?"  
Leon felt very vulnerable. "We're in this together" Rebecca said, leaning against his shoulder "I can't imagine it being any other way." Leon agreed, and found himself touching the lid of the casket, feeling its cool stone. Leon Eight said something that gave Leon a slightly shiver; if not exactly sinister, but true. "My name is Legion" Leon Eight said, calmly "For we are many."  
  
Hope you enjoyed! By the way, I have not written off Claire, okay? She will appear at some point...it will make things...interesting ( But please do bear with me, I have not forgotten the Claire angle. You also may have noticed that I re-uploaded this chapter, mainly because I felt that I was slightly rude in the last chapter to my fans. I'm sorry if I annoyed anybody, but I have been busy lately. The story is evolving; I have also noticed that some people think I am 'reusing my ideas' from one of my previous stories in the form of the cloning theme. It is coincidence I assure you, but I didn't feel like I truly enjoyed my 'clone' sub-story in Apocalypse Rising. It felt a bit tacked on and underdeveloped. This story explores this in a whole new way – Leon and Rebecca are clones, not the originals. It's the other side of the equation; also, the theme of family and evolution will be explored properly; as well as a pretty good twist. This is the first time I have been truly happy with a genetic replication story, and if I'm happy enough with it it will be the last too. I am thinking of doing a quick, fluffy Leon/Claire thing too just so my Leon/Claire fans don't despair, lol :D If you have questions or requests, then PLEASE email me, okay? I always respond : ) -Mark 


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